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Galif©PHia 


S©l(S-field SseFies: 


Selections from 


Quien ^aljc’s Qoltl-fieltl jVI'anusciiipts. 


BY REV. R. W. BIGHAM, 

t/f the North Georgia Coiifereuoe. Author of ‘’Viunv Leal's Trip to theGoldeu Shore.” 


Introduction by A. G. Haygood, D.D., LL.D. 


' / 


OF 1 


JUN 28 188 

l-¥ 


> -.3 87 

WASHWO^ 


Nashville : > / 1 o^/ 

Southern Methodist Publi shing House. 

188 ( 5 . 





EDITOR’S NOTE. 


The “California Gold-field Scenes” will give many 
pleasant hours to the traveler by land or sea. The Au- 
thor’s style is peculiar, but it was inspired by his surround- 
ings in the strange and marvelous country that has opened 
many new chapters in the history of the Avorld. There are 
no dull descriptions, no tedioiis notes of travel, no weari- 
some reflections. Every thought is fresh and bright and 
new, and as striking as the scenery depicted in the volume. 
Young readers will be amused and instructed, and those of 
more matured experience will recognize the thrilling 
power of the Author’s pen. 

W. P. Harrison, 

Nashville, April, 1886. Book Editor. 


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, 

By the Book Agents of the Methoptst Kpiscopai. Chukch, South, 
in the Office of the Eibrarian of Congress, at Washington. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction 5 

Chapter I. — A Wail Sliriller tlian the Storm’s. . . 9 
Chapter II. — His Jeweled Fingers Pressed the Harp. 14 

Chapter III. — If Leina were Here 20 

Chapter IV. — You Trample Fragments of Gold. ... 2G 

Chapter V. — As Tholigh Furies were in Them 32 

Chapter YI. — Heart- Yearned for the Rides to Hush. 41 

Chapter VII. — The Dead Man’s Ghost 48 

Chapter VIII. — Gratingly Athwart the Peak’s Face. 5G 

Chapter IX. — He’ll Leap, Leap— Lost! G7 _ 

Chapter X. — Miriam Thinks, Yes! 72 

Chapter XL — The Plaza D’ Armas Quivers 80' 

Chapter XII. — Pike — That Echo Rehearses with a 

Music so Strange 91 

Chapter XIII. — Phantom or no Phantom, he shall 

not Die in the Cold 104 

Chapter XIV. — He’s Follerin’ Sattan 115 

Chapter XV. — Snow-balling with Snow-clouds 119 

Chapter XVI. — That Lion were a Girl-lion 125 

Chapter XVII. — In a Tangle of Dream — I must See 

that River of Stone 130 

Chapter XVIII. — Tangled in the Coral Reefs— ’Cept 
She ’s Possess! o’ Sattan 141 


( 3 ) 


4 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Chapter XIX. — The Gleaming Blade of his Naked 

Bowie 

Chapter XX.— O it was a Sweet, Pure Face!— Every 

Thing but liife, the Dance of Life 154 

Chapter XXI. — Dress an Isthmus Monkey 1C4 

Chapter XXII. — Out of which Came tons Sorrowful 

Whispers 171 

Chapter XXIII. — I’m Evermore Kissing Her in tlie 

Air 187 

Chapter XXIV. — Dark-eyedSehOritas Waiting their 
Coming — The Dead One in the Heart of the 

Flames 193 

Chapter XXV. — Her Eyes was Mighty Stretcht, an’ 

Scart-lik-e 213 

Chapter XXVI. — Appeared as though the Dead 
were Risen, and were Moving, Grouping, Part- 
ing in Noiseless Awe 223 

Chapter XXVII. — Bonapartean 230 

Chapter XXVIII. — With Songful Winds Amongst 

the Bowing Flowers 241 

Chapter XXIX. — This King of the West — On the 

Shape Came Clinging 252 

Chapter XXX. — Bolls of Beryl and Gold 2G8 


INTRODUCTION. 


It was years ago the good fortune of the 
writer of this introductory note to bring to 
the acquaintance of the young people of the 
firesides and Sunday-schools in the South a 
little book that made more friends than almost 
any other that has been issued by the South- 
ern press. “Vinny Leal” and her “Trip to 
the Golden Sliore” has held the fascinated 
attention of many thousands. As the book- 
sellers say, “Vinny” had “a great run,” many 
thousand copies having been printed and sold. 
It found a place in most of our Sunday-school 
libraries, and was read and read till worn out. 
And no wonder; for, while its author bound 
himself by none of the conventional rules of 
book-making, he somehow “had a knack” of 
making people see what he had seen, hear what 
he had heard, know and love the people he had 
known and loved. The writer of this Intro- 
duction saw in the Publishing House at Nash- 
ville what he never saw elsewhere — a printer 
break into tears while “setting up copy” for 
“Vinny Leal;” and he confesses to a similar 

( 5 ) 


6 


INTliODUCTION, 


experience while “reading proof” as the book 
was “passing through the press.” 

The scenes, incidents, narratives, and char- 
acters that make up the body and soul of the 
“ California Gold-field Scenes ” will— if people’s 
tastes and dispositions have not changed very 
much during the last fifteen years — make for 
this little book among the young people of to- 
day fully as many friends as learned to love 
“Vinny Leal;” while many who laughed and 
wept with the saintly maiden long ago will for 
their own sakes read what “Quien Sabe” has 
to tell them of the wonder-land on the Pacific. 
And not a few of these children of 1873 who 
took delight in “ Vinny Leal ” will now find a 
sweeter pleasure in reading the “California 
Gold-field Scenes” to their children of 1886. 

The regulation critics will hardly approve 
the style and manner of our author. One 
would be glad to please them, if it did not 
cost too much; yet their approval is not 
necessary to the success or usefulness of a 
book. The conventional publisher’s manu- 
script “taster” does not always know a book 
when he samples it. The history of books 
“declined with thanks” by prudent publish- 
ers would itself make a large and entertaining 
—perhaps instructive — volume. AVe may be 


INTRODUCTION. 


7 


sure that Bunyan’s “Pilgrim” was not ap- 
proved when first he sought acquaintance with 
publishers. It is almost incredible, but the 
informed on such subjects tell us that “Kob- 
inson Crusoe ” was declined by publisher after 
publisher and returned to its author. After a 
long waiting a plucky publisher, who had little 
to lose by his venture, braved the critics and 
gave “Kobinson Crusoe” to type and leather. 
Thackeray failed to find a publisher of “Van- 
ity Fair,” and was obliged to bring it out as a 
magazine serial story. It is said of the most 
charming of story-tellers of our times — Hans 
Christian Andersen — that his first venture was 
declined by every publisher in Copenhagen. 

It is vain to criticise the structure of “ Qui- 
en Sabe’s ” sentences, or the peculiarities of 
his idiom; it is as irrelevant to measure his 
“style” by the classics of English composi- 
tion as to test the merits of a poem written in 
a newly invented meter by the verse of Virgil 
or Pope. Enough for his purpose he has of 
style; he makes us camp with him, dig gold 
with him, see the cascades and the sunsets, and 
hear the many voices of the day and night in 
the California gold-fields, as he saw and heard 
them. 

So many evil things creep into young peo^ 


8 


INTRODUCTION 


pie’s books nowadays that careful fathers and 
mothers mtist watch to see what manner they 
are of, just as they watch new play-fellows and 
acquaintances. But they need not be afraid of 
“ Quien Sabe ” and his friends — not the rough- 
est and most uncouth of them. The spirit of 
the book is good; it will suggest pure thoughts 
and inspire noble sentiments ; the gospel is in 
it all, because pure thoughts, noble senti- 
ments, and the living gospel are in the author 
of the book, the Bev. Bobert W. Bigham, an 
honored member of the North Georgia Confer- 
ence, and one of the first missionaries to the 
gold coast in the early days of California. 

Atticus G. Haygood. 

Oxford, Ga. 



CALII’ORmA aOLDmD SCEHES 

CHAPTER I. 

A WAIL SHBILLER THAN THE STORM’s. 



IFE has its phantoms that tangle 
it in brambles. Yet the wounds 
of the brambles sometimes im- 
part to life a grace and a joy that 
painlessness and ease can never 
bestow. So we will not dispel the gold-phan- 
tom because it enchants and draws us through 
jungles before admitting us within the gates 
to see the castles vanish and to collect the few 
real pearls their delusive structures contained. 
No phantom charmed like it. Its stretches of 
thorn are painted in hues of beauty and filled 
with songs to cheer us as we journey through 
them; and we almost forget the cares of the 
way for the caresses of the pure, glad scenes 
and sounds it places among the brambles. 
It pictured life and riches on the California 
gold-fields so deftly and thrillingly that infat- 
uated multitudes gathered there from all climes 

( 9 ) 



10 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


to revel in the witchery of gold. I went ashore 
among them one bright morning in 1850 on the 
sands of San Francisco. 

The phantom’s halo was upon every thing. 
The white-winged gulls, the gleaming atmos- 
phere, the bluffy columns of the Golden Gate, 
the laughing bay, the dreaming isles, the misty 
brows of the Coast Range, the wrinkled prongs 
of Mt. Diablo, the excited faces of the surg- 
ing passengers — ship, sea, land, sky — seemed 
tinged with gold. Albeit, the tinge was all; 
itself, the gold, was far away — snuggled, rock- 
locked, under the Sierra snow-crags. 

Thither, exchanging the scalpel for the im- 
plements of the mineralist, I hurried on with 
the tumultuous throng, and pitched camp be- 
neath a jetting ledge of coarse marble. My 
partner had been chosen with exceeding care, 
I thought — Tom Rothleit, an impulsive law- 
yer, whose forefathers, I learned from himself, 
had been distinguished for industry. The 
blood certainly had eliminated that quality 
before he felt its flow in his veins; yet he con- 
ceited that he and diligence would some day 
leave the world together, so clos'ely were they 
allied. He was fond of restmg, and I often 
queried, as the fitful months grated by, how he 
had redeemed time from that loved employ to 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 11 


learn to read and converse in several foreign 
languages, and to store his mind with the lore 
of many philosophies. His heart too was 
gentle as a mother’s, and David’s was no braver 
when he leaped to the fray with the gigantic 
hero of Gath. 

The abyssmal placer we mined recoiled from 
the sky down deep among the roots of the 
beetled heights, and moaned in the throes- of 
tempest and avalanche. A river clear as a 
diamond laughed at its grum features, and 
splashed them with icicles as it frolicked 
through the storm, and hissed us with defiant 
jeers as it swirled down its crabbed channel 
toward the far-away sea. We had toiled for a 
month, and only rare pebbles were the gems 
we had found. But Tom was persistent — per- 
haps I should say sullen— and we widened the 
pit, seeking the golden lead. 

The day was the drearest. The thunderless 
storm shrieked along the gorges, or, falling 
down the mountains amid floods of sleet, froze 
upon bluff and chasm. I was prying a chiespa 
from a crevice in the bed-rock when a wail 
shriller than the storm’s and the crash of the 
mine’s steep bank told me that Tom was buried 
alive. I had repeatedly warned him to quit 
gouging about under there with his Bowie- 


12 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


knife, and to help scale up the bed-rock with 
a pick; but he said the point of the pick would 
slip on the ice and trip him, and he could al- 
most see a big nugget, he thought. So he 
kept on in his industrious way, and now the 
catastrophe had him. Not a motion of the 
debris upon him guided to the spot where he 
lay. But as I rolled aside bowlder after bowl- 
der in frenzied haste, a stranger leaped into 
the pit; and plunging here and there in the 
deepening slush we soon found him, and ten- 
derly bore him to the camp; for we thought 
he was dead. It was only a few minutes after 
we had deposited his burly form near the fire 
when he revived; and so nonchalant was his 
leisurely yawn, as he sat up and glanced at 
the visitor inquiringly, that but for the huge 
bumps upon his forehead and scalp we might 
have thought that he had lain so still under 
the pebbled debris only to dupe us into the 
labor of lifting him out and bearing him to 
the camp. He was several days in regaining 
his appetite, however; and by that token, as 
much as by any other, I knew that he had suf- 
fered intensely; for the pleasures of eating 
moderately were known to him only when sick 
or through what he had read of and admired 
in the habits of others. He had too a way of 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 13 


giving no signs of his pains, lest they should 
inflict care upon others, though any pain in 
another met in him the nicest sympathy. Ev- 
ery thing we did, however awkwardly, pleased 
him. So we nursed him anxiously till he could 
straighten himself up and walk about the 
ledgy placer safely; and in a few weeks he 
was as well as ever. 

Our visitor grew restless when Tom had 
passed the crisis of his hurt. He was quite 
young, of slender build, thin, pale, save now 
and then a flush clung first to one cheek then 
to the other; and he declined to share the 
mine with us on the plea of inadequate health. 
Leaving his name — Hal S. — with us, he de- 
parted whither we knew not, nor did he appear 
to care. 



14 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


CHAPTER II. 

HIS JEWELED FINGERS PRESSED THE HARP. 


at that early period, CaliT 
ia was infested by gamblingr 
5 in the cities of the valleys 
in the towns that grew as 
y magic along the gloomy 
canons by which the mountains were cleft in 
twain. Though sinks of infamy, they were 
usually attractive. Their lights were brilliant, 
great log-fires blazed upon the hearths, choice 
lunches lured on convenient tables, newspa- 
pers from many States were free to all, music 
waltzed through their aisles; while piles of 
gold and the courtesies of the proprietors al- 
lured to their deadly circles men of every 
grade to be wrecked forever. One of them, 
like an outpost of Satanism, sentineled the 
trading-post whither Tom delightedly jour- 
neyed on occasion after supplies — his special- 
ty was gastronomy. I know not what — his 
“socialness,” he said — led him within its 
doors, whence he managed to escape alive, but 
just alive, and how he could never tell. 



CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


15 


Though often a bedlam, such a place was 
now and then stilled as each votary of its mock- 
ing goddess was awed by Vesper, and no sounds 
Avero heard save the soft fall of the cards and 
the subdued click of the dice. It Avas in the 
silence of such an interval, while Tom sat be- 
holding the various groups in breathless con- 
test for the piles of gold betAveen them, that 
the notes of a harp floated upon the scene. 
They seemed to ravish simultaneously eA^ery 
ear, to touch to gentleness each heart; and aft- 
er a short prelude the sounds, like music in 
ecstasy, were mingled Avith a young voice — Ioav, 
brave, sad — that entranced dealer and diceman 
in mid-throw, and drew all eyes to the girlish- 
looking youth of nineteen summers as his jew- 
eled fingers pressed from the harp its utmost 
melody. He looked as though he was con- 
scious of having stepped from an Eden into a 
scene Avhere no fruit pleasant to the eye or to 
the taste survived, and Avas throwing back 
across the separating gulf he had just passed 
to the loved ones he had left the last holy notes 
of a lost heart weeping over its ruined life. 
As the last chord of the song, “The Old Folks 
at Home,” was struck he leaned the instru- 
ment against the rough column where he had 
found it, and stood some moments contemptu- 


IG 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


oiisly observing the scene. Many a storied 
tear had shaded the eyes of the hardened sons 
of chance as the old song’s sentiment, like the 
angel of Bethesda, troubled their hearts; and 
they seemed for a moment to be dazed by the 
visions of childhood the song had recalled, and a 
few of them went out of ‘‘the hell ” to return no 
more. But directly the banker’s quiet invita- 
tions to the games were answered by the gold- 
en nuggets upon the hazard again. And as 
Hal, forgetful of his song, pushed into the 
thick of the sporting groups and placed a 
golden eagle upon a card, old Judge T., who 
had intently watched him, said: “So he falls 
— falls this time forever. He is a bold, kind, 
cultured lad from a polished AVestern home, 
and but lately vowed by his dead mother’s 
name to gamble no more. AVhat a vice! Fa- 
ther living, mother sainted, not any friend 
nor dearest memory can break the spell upon 
him now. It is out of a heaven into h — 1 the 
princely boy has plunged.” 

But ere the Judge’s monologue had died 
upon the dinky din of the saloon, Hal’s purse 
had doubled by the turn of a card, and he sat 
watching his alternately increasing and dimin- 
ishing pile of gold as though only it were 
worth a thought beneath the studded sky. 


CALIFORyiA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 17 


While so absorbed a self-poised miner entered 
the saloon and coolly scanned the many tables 
till his eye, resting on Hal, blazed as if it 
would sink the place to the perdition that 
names it. Moving to the youth’s side and 
bending over him, he quietly said: “Come, 
Hal; let’s go now. We have far to walk 
through the jungle, and the night wears away. 
Let ’s start.” 

Without lifting his eyes, he replied: “You 
here! Thought you would not venture out to- 
night. Indisposed, you said.” But, pondering 
a moment, he added: “Wait till I play one 
more game, then I ’ll go.” 

The miner looked ruefully upon him, but 
lounged away to a reading group wliere Tom, 
as it happened, was remarking the incident. 
When the game ended he returned to Hal, and 
pleasantly said: “It was well played; but 
come, the moon is hiding behind the mount- 
ain; let’s go tentward.” 

Hal half rose from his seat, but quickly sat 
down again as the tables of gold swam before 
liis eyes. His face hardened till each feature 
appeared like chiseled marble. Proulia’s fa- 
mous statue, “La Verite Vengeance,” exhibits 
no more implacable purpose than that which 
chilled him to his place next the glistening 


18 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


piles of gold. The phantom’s wand was upon 
him. Its voice of golden melody had whis- 
pered him into an ecstasy of hope and pur- 
pose to own the glowy heaps that, like the 
treasures of enchantment, unfolded their rich- 
es to his witched gaze. His soul now had nei- 
ther vision nor ear nor thought for any thing 
but gold. 

Laying his hand lightly upon his arm, his 
friend added: “You promised, and I waited; 
come ! ” 

Drinking deeply of a goblet of brandy by 
him, he replied in a bitter tone: “I will not 
go. You vex me; you do so incessantly. Why 
be so concerned about me?” 

“No wrath, Hal; no wrath,” he answered. 
“ I may need your aid winding among the dark 
cliffs; and of late robbers infest the trails, you 
know. I shall feel greater security with com- 
pany.” 

“Ah!” he retorted; “you afraid of Mexican 
outlaws, and among the first to scale Chapul- 
tepec a few years ago, held by their picked 
troops? And I never heard before that you 
were wont to totter from crags. The grizzly 
is not surer of foot among his natal chasms. 
No; that’s a ruse. You have foiled my gam- 
ing as often as you shall. Go.” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


19 


You are right! ” exclaimed several voices 
in the group. ‘‘Besides, you have won heav- 
ily of us, and must give us a chance to recover 
our losses.'’ 

“But,” said the miner to him, not noticing 
them, “ the choice to retire is yours. You can 
return whenever you will.” 

The gamblers now fiercely interposed, click- 
ing their revolvers in the miner’s face, and Hal, 
whose anger fired as they threatened his friend, 
felled the bruskest with a huge nugget; and 
Tom leaping to his help, the fierce fray of blows, 
shots, and stabs ceased only when the lights 
were quickly extinguished as the promptest 
means to quell the frantic melee. 



20 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


CHAPTER 111. 

IP LEINA WERE HERE. 


IE next day a Mexican burrero 
neared our camp, picking his way 
carefully through the rude fis- 
sure, leading three donkeys — the 
head of one tied to the tail of 
the other, each burdened with a helpless man. 

After the Mexican and I had laid the two 
guests upon all the blankets in the camp, Tom 
said, as we were taking him off his donkey: 
“ I know you think me a greater ass than the 
one I ride; but I could not help it.” And 
glancing to the wounded guests, he added: 
“ They massed against them in the gambling- 
hell, and I tried to rescue.” 

“You mean that you rescued!” exclaimed 
Hal as he sprung to his elbow, but fell as sud- 
denly prone again from utter exhaustion. 

We placed Tom upon an old rubber coat or 
two, and as we wiped the gush of blood from 
his mouth a faint smile sickened on his cheek, 
and he whispered: “It’s nothing, Quien; I’ll 
be ready for the mine to-morrow.” 




CALlFOliNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 21 


Albeit, he lay like the dead for many hours 
after that. But his words, “ I tried to rescue” 
and “ It *s nothing,” were the key-notes to his 
character — bodied a spirit that never faltered 
to peril for the weak or to cheer others, what- 
ever the torture that wrung himself. He had 
recognized Hal S. the moment the harp’s notes 
had turned his eyes upon him in the saloon 
as the person who had helped to extricate him 
from death when the mine “ caved in ” upon 
him. 

The magic of the gold-field, two years be- 
fore this incident, had hazed Hal in an Atlan- 
tic college and wafted him to California, where 
the vice of cards promptly spunged from his 
heart the high purposes that adorn the aver- 
age college-boy. Dissipation was rapidly min- 
ing out his life, for already consumption had 
paled and splotched his cheeks when the fatal 
wounds befell him in the gambling rencoun- 
ter. 

One night as we nursed him he grew colder 
and clammier, and weak to extremity, despite 
every care; and he whispered to us eagerly in 
a rhapsodic way: “You can’t — help — me out 
—of — this. It is death. Van often warned 
me — of— it; warned — me that — sin and — life 
—are too unlike to abide long together, in me 


22 CALIFORNTA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


— at — least; and there is no— help — for me — 
now.'' 

The sounds that phrased the last several 
words were like one imagines the tones of the 
soul would be if it were bruised into sobs. 
And he lay very stilJ, looking from face to 
face as if to catch a gleam of hope from one 
or another. But he closed his eyes as though 
our despairful looks made gloomier his drear 
wretchedness. Presently he said: “ The shad- 
ow on the silent river darkens — now, and — in 
its — awful hush — of — life — no sweet — note 
comes — ^ to — cheer — me in the — thickening 
dark.” And his eyes widened as he sighed 
out the words, and were dimmed too as if life 
were just then gone; but it was not, for he 
murmured, with long pauses between the words : 
“Innocence is peace; but crime — it makes life 
a tangle-wild of thorns, and infuses death with 
the bitterness of hopeless remorse.” 

His cold lips scarcely moved, yet his words 
echoed in the ear definitely, though whispered 
softly almost as a flutter of the death-angel. 
He said: “How fatal the arrows that bowman 
sin doth shoot! They wound to death quickly 
body and soul. Soul! Wliatissoul? Thought’s 
fountain, passion’s electric sky, the likeness of 
God. The angels shivered at sight of the an- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 23 


guish the pure Christ suffered to save it. But 
I, frenzied with gambling and brandy, have 
deemed it a trifle; mocked its upward long- 
ings; maddened it with a life of guilt till, on 
eager wing, it is flitting away forever — I know 
not whither.” 

Then he lay so motionless we thought he was 
dead. We could not see nor hear him breathe. 
But only the angel of sleep had touched him; 
yet we were conscious that a soul was disen- 
tangling itself from the ruins of its earth- 
home. The moon had dipped below the ho- 
rizon, the skies had pulled thick vapors between 
them and the scene, and from the darkness of 
the chasm gusts of wind leaped about us as 
we kept vigil by the dying youth. The day 
broke and shed upon the crags its pale light, 
and brighter grew coming dawn to us, tinting 
and waking up all nature, and floated into the 
tent and fell about the dying one. It seemed 
—the voice of the light, was it? — to say some- 
thing to his soul that startled and amazed it. 
For his eyes opened wide and wandered sol- 
emnly, intently from space to space, while 
tears and smiles joyfully commingled. Tom 
bent toward him, and asked, “What is it, Hal?” 

“My mother, Tom,” he answered; “ my mel- 
ody-voiced mother, who died a year ago. She 


2.4 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


was here a moment ago. I felt her hand upon 
my brow as it was wont to rest there, Tom, 
when I was a child. And her losing lips sung 
her favorite hymn — 

Just as I am, without one plea, 

But that Christ’s blood was shed for me. 

Ha! here again? Mother! Hist! she sings.” 

And wistfully, attently listening, as if catch- 
ing with the heart syllabled mercy, each death- 
line on his cold face lit with joy, he whis- 
pered: 

‘Just as I am, and waiting not 

To rid my soul of one dark blot. 

To thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, 

O Lamb of God, I come, I come ! ’ 

Precious blood shed for — me! Saved, saved 
by my mother’s Christ. Praise! ” 

And his face was a vision of rapture as he 
turned, gasped, and was dead. Our reveren- 
tial posture was not changed, for we had knelt 
beside him as he died, till Tom said: “If Le- 
ina were here she w'ould say, ‘Thank God!’ 
and I will say it for her. Tlie mercy he sought 
day and night this painful month came to him, 
but at hell’s margin.” 

We were sacredly affected by Tom’s words, 
but could not help the trill of amusement that 
mingled Avith our shock of aAve at his emphatic 


CALIFORXIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


caution in giving thanks. *We often noticed 
that he always liked to have his wife between 
him and the Great White Throne. The brave, 
warm, large heart felt safest that way. He 
knew that the throne had no controversy with 
her; that she was secure in its presence. But 
himself? Well, the readers can see him for 
themselves, for he was sincere and true as light 
is bright. 

Life has its mysteries; death his. And this 
was strange to me — the dying young man’s de- 
spair for a ruined life, wrapped in the death- 
sleep, awakened by whom? His mother, he 
said, who had died a year before across the 
continent, and hymned to him of Jesus in the 
valley of the shadow of death as he bordered 
hell till in the triumph of hope and peace he 
escaped to heaven. 

A few friends gathered from the canons, and 
we buried him in a hollow of the mountains 
where the attrition of ages may cover him deep- 
er and deeper; but the everlasting hill shall 
yield him up when Christ shall bid him rise. 


26 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


CHAPTER IV. . 

YOU TKAMPLE FRAGMENTS OF GOLD. 



N those days persons in the mines 
were seldom known except by a 
sobriquet; and often friends met 
who had been many years sepa- 
rated without recognition. But 
one day, when Hal S.’s comrade — Van — was 
able to sit up he caressed a picture, and said: 
“ Her beauty cannot vanish. It derives from 
the heart more than from form and feature.” 

Tom barely glanced at the picture before he 
exclaimed: “Ella H.! It was ten years ago 
when I met her last, and then in Berlin; thence 
to Borne, she said.” 

“About that time,” he replied, “I crossed the 
Mediterranean from Cairo, meeting her by ar- 
rangement at Florence; and amid its statuary 
and paintings she and I were made one. In 
our Pennsylvania home, training our little girl, 
she bides my return from the gold-fields.” 

The picture had revealed them to each other; 
and in the light of its dreamy eyes they re- 
membered that they had been boys together. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 27 


though more than a score of years had mapped 
their faces with cares since then. After this 
many a whimsical tale, sparkling with pranks, 
laughed their painful wounds into health 
again. The crags, the dumb rocks, the sun- 
shine turning “somersets” in the air, the leap- 
ing river, the singing spring, the whistling 
quail in the jungle, seemed to share their joy. 

What a blessed elf is childhood! It is fresh 
evermore. While the wild flowers tangle our 
feet along the school-path winding among flut- 
tering birds and chattering squirrels, it stores 
in the depths of the heart soft memories to 
float up and come to light and joy life, when 
hard years have clustered griefs about us and 
stripped hope of all its winsomest myths. No 
marvel the sublime Christ loved to be in its 
circles with hand and voice of blessing only, 
and painted from it the sheeniest, sweetest 
picture of the many immortelles which illus- 
trate the wisdom that comes down from heaven. 

Though separated when boys, the education 
of Eothleit and Van had been matured in the 
German schools. Each had traveled Europe, 
and Van had been advantaged bj^ a commer- 
cial residence of a few years at Cairo, the 
mart of the Nile. Yet he had not succeeded 
as a merchant, and Tom was, wonderful to tell, 


23 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


a self-confessed failure as a lawyer. But here, 
among the gnarled Sierras, Yan had amassed 
several thousand ounces of gold; and a few 
months after he and Tom were thrown togeth- 
er he arranged to return home by “the next 
steamer.” 

Tom’s accumulations were balanced by a 
few pennyweights; but, fascinated by the gold- 
phantom still, he strove to arrest his friend’s 
homeward purpose. For he said to him : “ Why 
go home with little more than a hundred thou- 
sand dollars, while here, wherever you walk, 
you trample fragments of gold as one does 
granite-tiags on the Philadelphia pavements? 
AVait till at least a million of dollars crumples 
in your pocket as a bank-check.” 

Yan’s eye swept the vast area of rocks as he 
replied: “Fragments of gold, where? [Here 
are huge jumbles of rocks that appear to have 
been chipped by the gods off a hidden world 
while polishing it into symmetry and dumped 
on these chasms and peaks; but the gold?” 

“ Under them, under the rocks^’ said Tom, 
“or clasped in their hearts, are tons of gold. 
The gods covered it so as to test man’s pluck. 
A few lucky strokes and it envelopes him in 
splendors like a world of meteors.” 

“ Thn t ’s a dream,” Yan replie(J. “ The gold- 


CALIFORNIji gold-field scenes. 29 


pliantom wove it of gold shreds and everlast- 
ing mountains of granite; and in the gleams 
of the infinitesimal shreds you forget that the 
mountains of adamant must be grpund into 
dust before the shreds are yours. Whether 
by pearls of the sea or gems of the hills life is 
tissued, it is brain and muscle force, irksomely 
plied, that weaves the rich plaid. The castles 
that the gold-phantom builds are beautiful, 
but their bright blocks are only the jewels of 
^a dream. Once as I journeyed the sea misty 
twilight built upon the waves a city of cloud- 
palaces. The work was done in a few minutes. 
They rose like magic creations upon the deep. 
Azure, purple, gray, golden, many-colored, 
they stood up upon the sea like castellated 
wonders of materiality. But they were but 
gorgeous vapor molded into temples and homes, 
unique, charming, that a sigh of Zephyr in a 
moment dissolved. Such castles does the gold- 
phantom build. They are phantasies; they pass 
away like the city of vapors. They are not 
habitable. No tenantry develop their domains ; 
they yield no rentals. Not a fruit nor a flower 
ripens or unfolds in their borders. No child- 
voice breaks with cheery sound upon the si- 
lent mystery holding court there. Tliey never 
echo a footfall, the merry ring of laughter, nor 


80 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


the brawny thud of labor. They are exquisite 
nothings that shine only when the sun — com- 
mon sense — dips to sleep in the rustling waves 
of actuality. Leave the phantasm. Its lures 
are spread here upon peak and plain like a 
sky of wonders, and many are the eagles it 
snares till they pine away and die. Keturn to 
the Atlantic Slope with me. Cling to law. Its 
toils are adapted to you; those of mining are 
not.” 

Tom appeared to be astounded — as he told, 
me afterward — by the supreme folly of the 
argument, and seemed never to have heard any 
thing so absurd as the proposal with which it 
concluded; and said in reply, in a sort of hope- 
less, jerky, rhapsodic way: “Can’t; can’t think 
of it. Borrowed gold to come to the gold- 
fields; am borrowing gold to gather the gold 
scattered all over them to payback. Broke! 
Beturn to the Atlantic States! go to nothing 
with nothing and be nothing forever! Impos- 
sible! Tired — of law — to death. I want to rest. 
It hardens nature. Wrecked a heart and fort- 
une by it — somehow. Must recuperate. I 
shall soon ‘ strike it rich ’ — unveil a gemmed 
vault of incalculable deposits among these 
rocks. Stay with us. Van, and share the pro- 
digious quantity of gold we shall gather.” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, "31 


“Do, Van,” said I. “The quantity already 
is 1 with a period preceding, followed by a 
world of ciphers, to which we shall soon add, 
by Tom’s showing, a Jupiter full of units on 
the left. Stay.” 

Said Tom, rather pertly, I thought: “ I dis- 
covered in oldZach’s Mexican campaign that an 
army surgeon had little practical sense except 
when extracting bullets from dead soldiers or 
ordering one to be buried. My arguments are 
unanswerable, as Van knows. We cannot fail 
to unearth a cave full of gold in less than a 
month’s time. Van, stay. We ’ll third it with 
you, and add half a ton to your part.” 

An incredulous smile rippled Van’s face as 
he shook his head and discerned how hopeless 
the effort to break the phantom’s spell on Eoth- 
leit. 



82 CALIFOBNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


CHAPTER V. 

AS THOUGH FUKIES WERE IN THEM. 



HEN morning flooded the jungle 
with light we watched Van from 
our camp climbing along the ab- 
rupt face of the mountain by the 
perilous trail, buoyantly rising — 
now visible, now hidden — two thousand feet, 
scaling the height, “going home.” An eagle 
to his right gyrated from a sun-bright crag per- 
pendicularly up higher and higher in the un- 
flecked ether till — a speck, a moment on quiver- 
ing poise — it fell spirally down, down, like a 
gray bolt of shimmering steel, and flashed its 
pinions in our eyes, between him and us, as it 
swooped athwart the drear abyss and perched 
upon the ragged crest of an opposite crag. 
We hailed* the brave bird with a wild shout, 
for we felt the fourth of eTuly leaping from 
peak to peak in fetterless liberty as its defiant 
swoop up, down, athwart the canon, on high 
again, caught our eyes and snatched us to our 
feet. As we intently watched it, it dropped 
over on helpless wing, sprawling, tumbling. 



CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


o«> 

OO 


falling a thousand feet into the dismal gorge. 
The puff of smoke that whiffed up just beyond 
its aerie told us that a hunter with fatal aim 
had pierced the shining mark. In a few mo- 
ments we beheld him standing where the eagle 
had stood, peering into the abyss, and we al- 
most wished to see him too topple from the 
height. But he cautiously drew away from 
the frightful brink. 

Yan had x^aused on the farther summit be- 
yond the river, viewing like a spelled artist the 
cragged scenery by which we were interlocked, 
painting on his brain each wonder that nature 
here was lifting to the clouds upon her chasmed 
bosom. He was obviously aware that at his 
altitude he appeared like a dwarf to us, for he 
bent to the ground to make sure to our sight 
his last salutation, and passed out of sight for- 
ever, we thought, round the white dome of the 
snow-capped Sierra. 

As we stood gazing toward the space whence 
Van had disappeared, our attention was attract- 
ed by the sound of a panther-like tread coming 
from the mouth of the gloomy rift next to us. 
Presently the intertwining shrubbery noiseless- 
ly opened, and the huntsman stepped — rather 
glided — out upon the narrow plateau we occu- 
pied. He greeted us courteously, and appeared 


84 CALIFOBNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


to be about thirty years old. His bearing be- 
tokened one used to cultured life; yet even a 
casual glance descried a fugitiveness in his eye 
and a lynx-like gleam in his placid, beardless 
face that indicated, amid seeming virtues, a 
shrewd guile capable of little or monstrous 
trickery. Such was his tact and demeanor, 
how^ever, that the unwary would as soon look 
for poisonous fangs in a dove’s beak as for el- 
ements of the miscreant in him. He spent a 
chatty hour with us, and inquired, en iiassanf, 
after Van, stating that he had heard that he 
wished to sell a mining claim; and he went 
from us across the pathless mountain south- 
ward. 

The next day the mule-back expressman had 
barely left us to our “ letters from home” when 
we were startled by the return of Van, look- 
ing like an apparition from Dante’s gloomy 
hell. His usually joyous, animated face was 
impassive, pale, haggard, drear, hard. His 
lips were compressed as if his teeth were 
ground into one another. His eyes were 
gleamy, dilated, fixed, yet appearing as though 
furies were in them. His form at brief inter- 
vals shook as though convulsed by resistless 
electric shocks. His air was that of frenzied 
desolateness. And his voice, when at last we 


CALIFOBXIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 35 


heard it, was discordant, harsh as hate, yet 
strangely mournful. We grasped his hand, 
but it gave no return pressure. It was dry, 
hot, nerveless. And he leaned against the 
tent-post like a form of marble. He appar- 
ently heard nothing, uttered nothing, noticed 
nothing, replied to nothing; appeared uncon- 
scious of creation around, looking fixedly, 
fiercely into some fathomless horror on crea- 
tion’s verge. 

To me the interview was intolerable. The 
picturesque spot whereon we stood, the song- 
ful spring near, the whizzing river; the gray, 
rent, huge rocks; the blue ravines; the hum- 
ming forests; the ether-robed mountains; the 
majestic heavens — every object seemed to im- 
age him in horror’s confounded amaze, and 
to press him chilled yet afire to my very 
being. My own brain began to seethe; my 
teeth clinched; my blood leaped, paused, then 
bounded crazily again; my heart stood still, 
then beat in convulsions; my senses were 
numbed. The abyss, the eternal hills, the 
heavens, whirled around, and, whirling me, 
seemed to totter, topple, tumble together in 
the supernatural gyration. I felt that my eyes 
too and face were taking on that strange look 
like his; tliat I going crazy, I almost 


36 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


shrieked with the frenzy. Had I been Job I 
could not have prayed then for my friend; had 
I been ‘‘a son of Belial” I could not have 
cursed his foe. For my whole nature seemed 
to have been transmuted into the condition 
of horror that Van’s wrong, whatever it was, 
had thrust upon him. 

Kothleit possessed an inexplicable virtue; 
men leaned upon him at once in trouble — they 
trusted in him. He appeared unconscious of 
the quality, yet it sat as chief in the armies of 
his heart till distrust confided to him and de- 
spair I clung to him with the sense of rescue 
and relief. Bemembering this, I turned aside, 
leaving him alone with Van, who, I hoped, 
would speak to him if I were gone. But I 
paused near — to interfere on occasion— in a 
gi’oup of marble busts chiseled by the tem- 
pests; for a rankling dread that Van would kill 
him had seized me. Van soon tossed a letter 
to him, upon which his glance had fallen but a 
moment ere he shook it from him as he would 
an adder, and, with a fierce exclamation, sprung 
to his feet. But quickly he was quiet as the 
Sea of Galilee stilled by Jesus, and read the 
letter as though its contents were the veriest 
commonplace. Lifting his eyes from it to 
Van, ho. said, “Tliere is some mistake here.” 


CALIFOBNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 37 


“No,” said Van. 

“The statements innst be false; the letter 
may be a forgery,” he suggested in slow, calm 
tones. 

Clutching the letter, he answered with hiss- 
ing vehemence: “I tell you no. By every 
stroke of the pen I vow her own father wrote 
it. is false. She!” 

And his hand nestled like lightning on Tom’s 
breast; and, holding him off at arm’s length, 
his fiendish eye danced the reveille of the pit. 
But Tom very quietly said: “Impossible. 
Think. Her blood is without taint as far back 
as you can trace it. Indiscreet, not 

impure. Van, that’s the worst of it.” 

“ But,” replied he, “ at the trading-post dif- 
ferent persons from my section in the East 
have received similar statements in letters. Her 
marriage and flight to Australia are assured.” 

“Alas!” said Tom; “it is inexplicable. I 
do n’t believe it. When such a woman is in- 
volved it is wise to hope, just to wait time’s 
light upon the mystery.” 

Van gasped and tottered. The surges of 
fiery passions had stricken him to the sward 
like lightning; and we bathed his brow and 
lips that seemed now sealed forever. The let- 
ter that had met him at the trading-post the 


38 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


day before and turned his heart to flames was 
from his wife’s father, revealing her secret di- 
vorce, then marriage and departure from Noav 
Y ork for Australia. 

It was a sad sight, that mad struggle of the 
stricken man with the demon insanity. And 
one night as he raged bitterest in stark deliri- 
um the hunter came again, and craved lodging 
till morning. As he sat watching with us till 
a late hour, we noticed that when Yan was 
wildest, and uttered with maniac emphasis the 
name of him who had eloped with his wife, 
a flitting sneer glared on his face. And dur- 
ing the hours that he slept we observed that 
his dark hair was a wig that, disheveled in 
sleep, betrayed a suit of auburn hair more 
properly his own. Next morning he spiced 
our breakfast of quail that his skilled gunnery 
had supplied with pleasant Anecdotes, in which 
military phrases were noticeable, and, as he 
bid us good-by, said: “If Yan dies, please 
announce it in the Sacramento dailies. I will 
watch for it.” 

For several days sleep forsook Yan’s eye- 
lids. He was fiercely alive, yet dead to every 
thing save the disclosure concerning his wife. 
That coiled about his being like a serpent of 
fire, wringing him in its burning folds till his 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 39 


eyes glowed in their sockets like focused per- 
ditions. The thought Jiome enraged him inde- 
scribably. Before the horror befell he built 
upon it many joyful anticipations, traced to 
it many delightful memories, and constantly 
spoke of it with exceeding pleasure. And the 
bright morning he parted with us to journey 
to it he appeared like one in an exultant trance; 
but ere noon had come he wished the hours 
were forever that kept him away from it. 

Home. How exquisitely pleasing the trains 
of feeling that bound through the heart when, 
among strangers and distant scenes, the soul 
trances the separating spaces and rests in its 
borders again, and breathes the air and feels 
the sunshine that huzzaed its childhood! But 
it is essential agony to have the soul barred 
against those richly freighted trains, their sig- 
nals unheeded; their puff, puff of kindly ap- 
proach disregarded; its palace darkened by the 
black smoke rising from the heart burning up 
itself; its ears noting not a pleasant melody in 
all the joyful sprites that make home the mu- 
sic of life; only the paining chorus of the fiery 
agony is heard by it evermore — day, night, 
rain, shine — as crisper and more charred the 
burning heart becomes. And this was Van’s 
condition now. 


40 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


We alternated in watching by his side, yet 
it was so often that our united strength was 
required to control him that one day we fell 
asleep at the same time from insupportable 
weariness. AYhen we awoke Yan was gone. 
We traced him to a huge rock that, like a 
basking Gorgon, stretched boldly out into the 
river, compressing its floods into a narrow, 
down which they rushed in spiteful shrieks, 
fretted by the jagged channel into bounding 
billows. Opposite the rock’s point grew a wil- 
low that bent over the rapids, vainly striving to 
rest its quivering boughs upon the rock. Sever- 
al branches had been freshly torn from it, and 
itself was wet, as though beast or man had 
leaped from the rock into its slender limbs in a 
wild struggle to cross the boiling waters, and had 
been lost in the attempt. We could not trace 
our friend from that spot. From neither side 
did any foot-print guide away. And after days 
of painful search we concluded that he had been 
beaten to death by the maddened rapids upon 
their granite bed, and tossed derisively on to 
the far-off tule-quags, to sleep in their mystic 
hush forever. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 41 


CHAPTER VI. 

HEART YEARNED FOR THE RIFLES TO HUSH. 



HOETLY after we had lost Van 
an old comrade of his found the 
way to our placer. I first beheld 
him on the mine’s brink observ- 
ing Both at work. As he caught 
my glance he said: ‘T would like to be his 
])artner. He dreams gold, I know, and be- 
lieves that every next pry of the pick will 
break into a tentful of it.’ "" 

Both greeted him in the same humor, and 
we sauntered up to the camp. He appeared 
to have but one real anxiety — not to own gold 
long. Yet he labored with energy for it. It 
obtained, he got rid of it with sunny indiffer- 
ence. He kept it busy by “staking, ’as he 
called it, every broken miner he met; and, 
considering that most miners kept themselves 
broke, he “had a time of it.” He spoke Span- 
ish and French, and wrote each accurately, 
having been educated in New Orleans and 
brought into habitual association with persons 



42 CALlFORl^IA GOLD-FIELD SCENES^ 


using those languages. His adventures among 
the Comanche Indians and in the war with 
Mexico had imparted to him an air of melan- 
choly, with physical and intellectual dash and 
self-reliance. A few weeks’ mining on this 
placer made his pocket very like our own 
empty — not because of its outflow, but for lack 
of inflow. Yet he lounged of evenings in the 
purplish halo that lolled down between the 
mountains as carelessly as though the reverse 
was true. AYe were not so complacent, and I 
disturbed the quiet of the camp one day by 
announcing the purpose to take to the mount- 
ains with pick and pan and prospect for richer 
diggings. 

Both only lifted his eyes above the distant 
snow-peaks mournfully. Mack, supine on the 
ground, his head pillowed on a rock, his rub- 
ber-booted heels stuck as high up a hemlock- 
tree as he could get them, made no sign, only 
he puffed a whiff of smoke sheer up among 
the boughs and watched it thinning, floating 
higher and vanishing like a phantasy in thin 
air. Then he whiffed upward other puffs, with 
long pauses between. Presently he tossed his 
pipe after the smoke and said: “Prospect! 
I ’ve prospected from San Diego to Yreka and 
back this far. I’m a- weary of it. I’ll wait 


CALIFOI{:SIA GOLD-FIELD SCUNES. 43 


here until a huge nugget trips me up, then 
I — will — pick it up — may be, and be rich 
enough to turn Tom’s air-castles into realities 
when he comes back broke down and mourn- 
ful as that donkey out there. I shall wait 
here.” 

“Wait!” exclaimed Tom. “Wait is the 
thriftless child of laziness, and industry has 
not the folly to dally with it. I go with Quien.” 

“ You are a logician, Tom,” rejoined Mack. 
“Seneca discovered the riches of poverty in 
the light of his jew^eled table, and, extolling 
its blessedness, was no less consistent than 
you. You have dinned ‘wait, wait’ into our 
ears so long that we call this the ‘Wait Mine.’ 
And now you would have us think that they 
who wait are atypic grunts of humanity, adipic 
sloughs on the waves of progress, ‘deads’ on 
the veins of toil that thrill the world. Yerily, 
not to swear, they who wait are pompous, puffed, 
poor, fond swells, pouring saturnalia upon the 
pure currents of brain and muscle that digni- 
fy man. Beshrew the dank bloats! Eich, 
poor, placid, low— let them uncoil, get to some- 
thing, prospect, or their friend Lucifer will 
make them thralls to do his bidding. But I 
will wait for all that; the ‘Wait Mine’ is 
mine.” 


44 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


As liis cool, tantalizing tones ceased he in- 
deed looked like he would wait till the death- 
sigh of time. But presently a large bear wad- 
dled without a thicket, and ascending a blutf 
looked curiously down at us. We watched his 
queer observations till he prowled off into a 
jungly gulch. 

“Let him go prospect,” said Mack;” “he ’ll 
return, for Tom is the fattest nugget he can 
find. He will come back for him.” 

He was barely silent when the bear came in 
view again and squatted on the bluff. He 
stepped into the tent, passed to Tom a rifle, 
shouldered another, and, nodding to bruin, 
they wheeled silently into the chaparral. They 
soon gained a covert in fifty paces of the bear, 
who the next moment leaped high into the air 
and fell over the marble ledge into the whirl- 
ing rapids. Only Both had fired, had missed 
the mark, and Mack, uttering a jubilant shout, 
stood leaning on his rifle gazing on the affright- 
ed beast as he struggled in the fretted current, 
and near the tent came ashore, disappearing in 
the gorge that here opened its dark mouth to 
the tortured floods. When they had returned. 
Both said to Mack: “Why didn’t you shoot 
him as he was swimming? You had a dozen 
opportunities ere he was beyond bullet- range.” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


45 


“I know it,” Mack replied; “but I could 
not shoot. When I was a boy I went with 
some Texan Eangers to flush a band of Co- 
manches. They ambuscaded us. The two 
soldiers who escaped the massacre with me 
were slain the following night as we huddled 
around a few coals in a tempest. I again es- 
caped in the thicket. The next day, worn, 
weary, fevered, hungry, I stood, as the sun was 
setting, upon a bluff washed by a swollen river. 
It had stormed all the day. As I looked up 
and down the stream to detect some means of 
crossing, a volley of bullets whistled by my 
head and heart. I leaped far out into the 
rushing flood, and swam and dived and plunged 
amid bullets and arrows to the flat swamp op- 
posite. How my heart yearned for the rifles 
to hush, for the arrows to whiz no more! 
When the bear turned his somersault into the 
river, I remembered that incident. How could 
I shoot him? I felt that he was me scring- 
ing, plunging in the water with a heart-wail 
for life. About midnight a sense of safety 
came over me, and I stopped in the darkness, 
stood upon my head, walked upon my hands, 
feet up, and played ‘turn the wheel’ in the 
young cane, and wished to yell with delight at 
my escape. But a racket to the right scared 


46 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


me, and I glided on till daylight showed me 
the plains. I had scarcely entered upon them 
when I heard my father’s whistle of danger in 
a ravine. I fled toward it as a bullet cut 
the grass under my feet. Then another rifle 
cracked, and I heard a groan near me, and 
glancing back saw a Comanche rising and fall- 
ing, but he was still ere I reached my father, 
whose aim had been sure. Bruin is safe. I 
rejoice with him. And Both, when you flght 
a duel — that men about your caliber are some- 
times not wise enough to avoid — see that your 
enemy is as good a shot as yourself; then nei- 
ther will spill blood. You missed the bear a 
a foot or two at least. I was sure you would 
do so when I nudged you as you were aim- 
ing.” 

“So you jostled me as I shot of pur- 
pose,” laughed Tom; “I thought so at the 
time.” 

“Yes; and huzzaed when your bullet flat- 
tened on a rock to the bear’s right,” replied 
Mack. 

The next day Both and I, with a brown don- 
key, were threading a rough-visaged route 
prospecting. Summits conic, truncated, sym- 
metrical, ragged; snow-crowned peak kings 
that the shocks of many seasons had not dis- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 47 


crowned, with gloomful abysses between, and 
vast shadows lengthening, widening, darken- 
ing about them like mystic creations, mar- 
shaled about our pathless course. 


48 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE DEAD MAN’S GHOST. 


PIE third week of our prospect- 
ing trip brought us — many miles 
from our starting-point — high up 
on Dead Man’s Creek that pushed 
its snow floods in leaps from 
ledge to chasm, over bowlder and pebbled chan- 
nel, in shout and hiss, and murmur and splash, 
as though a regiment of school-boys were rol- 
licking in its pools and falls. Great rocks 
locked to the bluffs by columnar links of gran- 
ite overhung its depths. And bleak crags 
grouped close about it whose shadows dark- 
ened it. AVe knew not that any one was in a 
day’s journey of the solitary place, and v/o 
pitched camp for the night. 

I was very tired; Tom said I was always so; 
and he was very blue. We sat upon the bank 
thirty feet above the stream watching the isin- 
glass glisten on the rocky bottom ; and he was 
delighting me, he thought, by describing to 
me the hundredth time his wife and children. 
Tom — his namesake — he said, was the image 



CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 49 


of himself; but I could see by the pictures 
that he was just the reverse — very like his 
mother; and desiring a change of subject, I 
dropped a nugget, and managed that his eye 
should catch its glitter in the water. He at- 
tempted vainly to make me see it too; so he 
scrambled down to the pool where it lay laugh- 
ling at its owner; for the beautiful specimen 
was his own. Many miles away, and several 
months before, he had pried it from a crevice 
and given it to me to keep till he could send 
it home. But such was his exultation that he 
knew it not. Hope’s reactionary gas fairly 
sparkled in his face and crackled in his leap- 
ing voice as he secured it and held it up for 
my inspection. 

‘‘I ’ll prospect awhile,” he said; and the rap- 
id thuds of the pick told me he was at work 
under the bluff. And I rejoiced that he had 
found something else to do besides to talk. 
He loved to talk; and I had learned to think 
and dream dreams or make elaborate calcula- 
tions amid his most charming bursts of talk, 
not noting a word he said. But it was all the 
same to him so he talked, for it never entered 
his mind to conceive so preposterous a thing 
as that any one could be otherwise than raised 
into nearly divine raptures by the music and 
4 


50 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 

wisdom of liis words» After awhile I called 
him repeatedly, but could get nothing of him 
but “wait.” So I concluded to break up his 
business. A few yards from the spot where 
he toiled were rents in the bluff, and thrusting 
a pole into one of them, several tons of rub- 
bish lumbered to the bottom. He uttered a 
wild yell as the avalanche broke loose, and 
fled, leaping through the creek as if an earth- 
quake w'ere after him. I hurried to the camp 
and busied about supper. In a few minutes 
he came to the camp, and, girding a blanket 
about him, hung his clothing to the fire to dry. 
In answer to my query, “ What ’s the matter, 
Tom?” he replied: “O nothing! nothing — 
much; I just stepped into the creek — a — lit- 
tle.” 

I had a notion about the “ just stepped ” and 
the “a — little;” but he brought to me his pan, 
and in the gleam of the ounce and more of 
gold his hour’s work had unearthed we forgot 
the incident. 

That night the moon put on her shiniest 
robes, and laughed in the heavens in a glee of 
glory. The wilderness was like a silvery illu- 
mination. A wolf now and then trotted across 
the purple haze of our camp-fire, and a fright- 
ened deer leaped past. Besides these, nothing 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 51 


disturbed the splendid solitude save the moon- 
beams shattering on woods and rocks and the 
muffled sighs of the dreamy wind. True, 
Dead Man’s Creek murmured in our ears re- 
frains of the murdered man whose corpse 
named it; but we transmuted the doleful mel- 
odies into golden anthems, and, soothing our 
loneliness in the hopeful chorus, fell asleep to 
rhythms of imagination sweeter than Orpheus 
struck from his golden shell. For fancy whis- 
pered to us wonderful things concerning much 
goods laid away in store by the daughters of 
gold waiting for us among the rocks and cas- 
cades under the bluff. 

About midnight Tom awoke me, whispering 
in my ears: “There’s the dead man’s ghost 
groaning and muttering right across the creek, 
keeping watch on us.” 

I doubt if a battle of thunder-storms could 
have stirred me sooner. And sure enough, 
thirty steps from us, a pale, distorted face 
glistened beside a quivering clump of manga- 
nite. Presently we traced the full outlines of 
the shape; for it was restless. It clutched the 
air, moaned, gnashed its teeth, but slept all 
the while it seemed, however anguished, mut- 
tering words of rage and murder. During 
the while Tom appeared dissatisfied with him- 


52 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


self — uneasy — and strolled up the creek. In 
a few minutes I saw that he had crossed over 
and seated himself beside the fierce, pale 
sleeper. He touched him, shook him. He, 
waking with a drear roar, seized him, and a 
wild struggle to save life and to take it began. 
I knew not what to do. Ere I could possibly 
reach the crossing one or both would be dead. 
I screamed — but who heard me? In a few 
moments he darted to the precipice with Tom 
lifted in the air as if he were a cork to hurl him 
into the jaggy chasm, exclaiming: “Fiend! 
fiend! to hell with you!” 

I knew the voice, and shouted, “ Van! ” - 

He drew back from the dismal brink, and 
said, “Quien.” 

And said I — pointing to Both, whom he 
still held throttled — “ Tom.” 

He laid him down tenderly, kissed his ashy 
face, and wrung his hands in agony over him. 
Hurrying to the crossing, I soon gained the 
scene of the rencounter; but they were gone. 
I peeped into the dank chasm, but heard noth- 
ing save the splash of the fretted waters. But 
from along the mountain-side over me sounds 
like staggering footsteps fell upon my strain- 
ing ears, and I sped after them, thinking that 
Van’s frenzy had returned, and that he was 


CALIFOnNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 53 


scaling the crag with Tom to hurl him, in 
prankish madness, from its moon-lit height 
into the awful gorge that yawned at its base 
like a bottomless hell. Now and then a stone 
loosened by his ascent bounded down by me 
as the leaves and twigs rustling beneath his 
tread guided my pursuit. Five minutes that 
seemed an hour intervened ere I overtook him 
under Tom’s dead-weight pressing, straining 
up the mountain; and, laying my hand upon 
his shoulder, said: “Put him down, down!” 

But he leaped away from me with a w^ail, 
and with mad strength and agility climbed on 
up the crag’s face, over log and rock and fis- 
sured gorge. And still above and just beyond 
him I heard the groaning of a water-fall as it 
fell ceaselessly over a glum precipice, and its 
white face gleamed like pale death waiting for 
us. I tripped him, and, as he rolled twenty 
feet down the steep, wrested Both from his 
eager clutch, and ere he regained my side was 
laving his dead face at the basin of the water- 
fall. He stood by me speechless, watched with 
awed eagerness each manipulation, stooped, 
peered into my eyes, touched the ashy-pale 
face, and whispered, “Dead?” 

“No; not yet,” I replied. 

And silent, quick as thought, he plunged 


54 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


into the boiling flood with him — across, up, and 
away with him — with a frantic yell, toward a, 
cliff that gleamed like a grand dome near the 
summit. But he sunk to the ground in a few 
minutes, exhausted by the contrary frenzies 
that had surged in his soul and by his bur- 
dened, reckless rush up the height. 

I again knelt over Both. His pulse flut- 
tered and was still. His heart trembled, then 
went to sleep. But as we rubbed and called 
him the pulse leaped and was at rest again ; the 
heart throbbed, was lost to motion, throbbed, 
throbbed, throbbed. Tom sighed and sat up. 
Van’s eye danced delightedly, and he stretched 
himself beside him, limber as a molten form; 
but the pathetic “ Thank God! ” he uttered told 
me he was in his right mind. 

Roth looked from one to the other, felt his 
wet garments, touched the blood upon them 
softly, inquisitively, and said: “What does it 
all mean? ” 

“It means,” I replied, “that you are your- 
self the stark fool forever, been fighting ‘the 
dead man’s ghost,’ who flitted up here with 
you, and went in a-washing with you as he 
came by the falls. Couldn’t you have let the 
haunt alone? Why have you gone .over there 
to disturb it?” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


A wave of happy humor rippled Van’s face, 
and he knelt up in the moonlight by Tom, who, 
with boy-like joy, recognized him, and said: 
“ So tjou are the ghost. Well, I was — scared a 
— some, I think, and am hurt a little; but it ’s 
nothing. I would go through it again to find 


you. 


And so he would have done. Indeed, had 
he been Dante among the internals, instead of 
storing his brain with their horrors to detail 
in a book, he would have turned himself into 
a cinder trying to loose the fired devils. 

We helped him up the peak to a cliff on its 
side that appeared in the moonshine like a 
castle of silver. In its heart was Van’s cave, 
whither he was hurrying Tom when I over- 
took him. There we bestowed him on a bed 
of grizzlies’ skins, and, leaving him asleep, we 
walked out upon the promontory that jutted 
sheerly from the crown of the height athwart 
an abyss whose depths, like the mythic river 
of sighs, were hidden in fathomless dark. 



56 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

GBATINGLY ATHWABT THE PEAK’S FACE. 


scene was wondrous. The stu- 
pendous rocks; the zigzag spurs 
bald, wooded ; the solitary peaks 
snow-robed in solemn valleys; 
the piled ranges leaning against 
the star-lit horizon drooping its glittering cir- 
cle on every side; the hoarse calls of the winds; 
the sough of the vast waste ; the moan of the 
drear abyss; the whispers of pale ether wor- 
shiping between earth and sky, imparted to 
the heart a delightful awe. 

Van appeared to be oblivious of the scene, 
intent on peering far beyond. A river, tossing 
its floods amongst far-away Atlantic hills, held 
upon its bosom his memories and his dead 
hopes, and he was floating now upon its far- 
off current. His heart had tranced the conti- 
nent to swim upon its waves with the ghosts 
of the past, and as one and another of them 
glided to the surface he voiced the thoughts 
they evoked. 

“Life was sweet as peace then,” he said. 




CALIFORNIA GOLD-^FIELD SCENES. 57 


“Bright as joy. Hop© smiled. Miriam was 
the ideal of loveliness; our little girl was fair 
to look upon. I prospered. Misfortune befell 
in the course of years. My father passed 
away; my mother quickly crossed the cold 
stream after him to God’s shore. Debts came 
to light — mortgages dusty with age. And to 
redeem the old homestead I hurried to these 
gold-fields. But the sacred prize is blurred 
by the naked woe that grew in its soft shad- 
ows, hushing for all time the spirits of joy in 
its groves and halls while it was being re- 
deemed with gold gathered here. Redeemed! 
Alas, it is lost! Not all the jewels of the Si- 
erras can light it with smiles again for me. 
Why did I come hither? Fatal land, death- 
place of all sunny dreams, shall I thank you 
for gold? It is but fine dust in the balance 
against the happiness it costs. Why did I 
come to thy dizzy heights and dreamy valleys? 
Yet these silent glories have not injured me. 
The horror was born elsewhere. At home its 
wail arose, and leaped a continent to damn me 
while hurrying there to look upon the fairest 
picture in all the world to me. The picture? 
Marred. The joy? Fled. A life-woe born; 
home expunged from the soul. How? AJiearf, 
instead of sparkling at anchor in purity’s ha- 


58 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


ven, admits a profane feeling to dally with her 
white wings, and waft her out upon the turbid 
sea forbidden to pure voyagers. Can she be 
recalled? The storms are black with fury 
there. Spirits from the pit lash its waters. 
In vain the heart lightens her load; the pilot, 
innocence, is dead. She becomes stained like 
the billows which toss her. She drives with 
the tempest awhile. When she would return, 
there is no way back for her from the black 
sea she sails. Her signals of distress are 
mocked by sailors on that main. Her lurid 
rockets, unheeded by the safe ashore, die in 
the thick night that shrouds her. No beacon 
on rock shines for her. Beaten, shivered, 
forsaken, adrift, in the swoop of the storm and 
crash of breakers, she must sink in the inky 
waters. She is lost. Only One is good enough 
to throw a bow of promise athwart the dark 
gulf, and great enough to sail a life-boat over 
its boiling surf for her rescue. Will she heed 
His promise and be found of him ? God help 
the poor voyager to Christ who stoops from 
heaven to hell to save a soul! Lost? ” 

I stood shivering at his side, for he seemed 
like a talking corpse, the stars bending from 
above, the yawned abyss waked up from be- 
neath, listening to him. Obviously, he was 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 59 


oblivious of me and of every object about 
him. His form was rigid, not a muscle quiv- 
ered, and his wide-open eyes stood still as his 
form, as his burning heart dropped out in 
words that hissed as they hid in the pale ether. 

“Lost,” he repeated. “Who is lost? A 
woman, gentle as love, trusting as faith, un- 
suspecting as hope, beautiful as chastity. She 
lost! Damned! ” 

His voice here was a whisper; yet it sounded 
to me like a lorn, stark shriek leaping over the 
icy Sierras from crag to cloud, to wilderness, 
to plain, to river, to city; across continents and 
seas — here, there, everywhere — seeking, like 
zigzag lightning, some certain object to fall 
upon. I imagined that Miriam, his wife, heard 
him in her hiding-place, and quivered, as I 
did, at the fiendism that irked and fired and 
shot out his last word like a hell in aspirate in 
quest of her. But she had no need to startle. 
The heart whose hot haste projected the meas- 
ureless “ damn ” lodged no spite for her, yet 
excused her not while it pitied, but mourned 
her with a fiery mourning. He was still rig- 
id, save that his eyes burned in the moon’s 
glint as if a fury afire were in rhapsody in 
them as he continued: “ Which is the perdi- 
tionable? Man says, ‘She is.’ Man, glowing 


60 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


with might and honor, ermined with justice 
and mercy, says, ‘She is the damnable one,’ 
and garlands him who hurled her from inno- 
cency ; laureates the fiend, but whips his victim 
forth into night. That’s his justice, honor, 
might, mercy--<lamning the icroncjed. Woman 
says, ‘ She it is who is perditionable.’ Woman, 
like Christ, touched with the feeling of our 
infirmities, beautiful, brave, loving, who be- 
wailed the Christ in the face of spiteful hell, 
adored at his tomb almost as early as the an- 
gels, and acclaimed his resurrection to Kome’s 
sneering savages and Jerusalem’s crucifying 
rnguNiies—she says that it is she that is beyond 
pardon. She scouts her to the pit pitilessly. 
She assigns her to eternal scorn, and hisses 
her eternally. But him that beguiled her? 
She smiles on him, welcomes him to hearth 
and heart; weds him. Hiss him I Why? 
What evil hath he done? Lured to perdition 
only a woman. Shorn her of that grace that 
makes her so like a heavanly visitant. Crushed 
her good heart. Gloomed her life with the 
abyss’s night. Hiss him for that? Not so. 
Kiss him rather, laud him, love him, wed him. 
O sweet logic! Heaven for the devil, hell for 
the victimated of his pestilent wickedness. O 
sweet logic! The hell of humanity enlarges 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 61 


its choicest Satan, and for the ruin he inflicts 
tortures woman with an infinity of anathema, 
and saints 

The fierce sneer of his sentences entered in 
the soul, the yividest image of the intense out- 
rage perpetrated against the beguiled in the 
given circumstances; an image that turned 
from her the merciless hates that beat her be- 
neath the surf — turned them to their proper 
mark, the inexpressible wretch who pilots her 
into the sea of shame. They are his, not 
hers — his, fetidest corruption of humanity 
that he is. 

Satan rubbed out the garden planted by 
God. Its fruits and flowers and trees, its tree 
of life, at his touch disappeared. And earth 
bristled with thorns as a testimony against 
him. But the man who blurs the heaven of 
woman’s heart, and sends her strangling with 
woe to mate with fiends, is caressed in tribute 
of his victory, and welcomed into earth’s sa- 
credest bowers. Nature cries to heaven against 
the unnatural crime. The hurtling scorn should 
center upon the brute-beast man instead. It 
was after him that Van’s jagged “damn” 
leaped. And the unspeakable pathos of his 
prayer that God would help her to Christ gave 
a fury to the naked lightning of the curse upon 


62 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


him that flamed like a bolt of doom. He had 
paused at the sentence, “ Tortures woman with 
an infinity of anathema, and saints him;” his 
face paler than the dead, his haughty form 
quivering as in the throes of some tumultu- 
ous passion. But he quickly resumed, saying: 
“Ay, but beast sheltered by society, your in- 
famy tinseled by the favor of those who, like 
the goddess truth, should spurn you farthest 
into the realm of reproach — your sin, yourSj 
will find you out. God, who quietly moves 
when he will into your rankling circles, though 
panoplied by hosts in arms* for you, will crush 
you as though you and they were veriest trifles. 
It is the Almighty who says, ‘I will repay.’ 
Your brassy heart, soon or late, must ring 
wails to the metal of his wrath. Two spirits 
commune with me. One urges to slay, slay 
him. And I often leap in sleep to grapple 
him, but to find it was only a phantasy of the 
brain I had met. To-night I thought Tom 
was he, and that retributive Nemesis had con- 
veyed him to me that I should hurl him into 
pitiless death. Why am I here? Why not 
bounding in pursuit? The other spirit enticed 
me. Its voice is not for blood. It is a gentle 
thing, yet it braves revenge in his fiercest mood, 
and tells him he is a criminal of Satanic hue; 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. ' 63 


that to murder is monstrous. In the haunts 
of men its voice is smothered. But here, 
where all nature speaks of God, I hearken to 
its pleadings. Not the eagle that rends, but 
the dove traversed the deluge on good bent. 
Close to the awful waves, adown their dank 
chasms, over their glowering crests, in the 
spray of their thunders, she sped, till, finding 
the leaf of peace, she retraced her brave path 
to the ark and trustingly fiuttered against its 
window for admission with the life-promise to 
its inmates. So this gentle spirit has fluttered 
about me in this horror. It allured me to 
this wild. It induces me to seek rencounters 
with beasts instead of man ; to study the rocks 
and plants; to hearken to the stars; to heed 
God in the tumbling falls, the rustling forests, 
the flashing avalanches, the quiet heavens — 
ministers of his that do his pleasure. What 
is it? It is gentle as the angel of mercy, and 
mighty. It trips hell and hustles it from the 
heart, but touches each delicate flower there 
into softer, sweeter, lovelier mold. Is it God? 
It is oft so utterly tender that I think it is my 
mother come from the dead to quell with her 
gentleness the fury that earth-wrongs have 
stirred. Do departed spirits of the good come 
to earth again, trace the way of mortals, min- 


64 CALIFOIiXIA GOLD-FIELD SC FEES, 


ister blessings? Who doubts it but a carnal- 
ist sneering at divinities? But coming, why 
invisible, without voice? Bather, do we not 
hear them with the soul, spirit to spirit heed- 
ing.” 

He looked away to the farther chasm — pale 
above with moonlight, black below its jungle- 
brow — up to the spangled sky, into the sheer 
abyss at our feet, and reeled to a bust of glinty 
quarts peeping above the granite like a Titan’s 
head, and sat upon it. There was a crazy 
white flame in his eye that I could not read, 
and the wide-eyed stars seemed to stoop down 
to catch the expression of his face and to shiv- 
er, hearing words like fire from a man of ice 
as he added: “Yet I often think it were hap- 
piness to drop off the height upon the rocks 
in the abyss’s fatal depths. Fearful imaget 
wring my brain. Vengeance convulses me 
and gloats on a coming meeting with hiii 
whose sin, dyed in woman’s heart-break, shap^ 
before me like the bolt of fate to drop him inb 
perdition. Blood starts in the air, drips fron 
my hands, curdles at my feet.” 

Here he sprung to his feet as if pierced 3y 
his last words, exclaiming: “What if I bd 
killed Tom for him to-night? Curse, c'rse 
upon the serpent who has crazed me!” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 65 


His tones were jagged and hissing like hurt- 
ling aerolites' falling. He shuddered. His 
face grew whiter like the essence of rage. 
His eye gleamed like a maddened beast’s. He 
rolled upon the ground like a convulsed ma- 
niac. He screamed in fury, and frenziedly 
tore himself. He leaped away — as if in pur- 
suit of some one — from ledge to ledge, down 
from gorge to gorge, unconscious of friend- 
ship’s or danger’s presence — a poor, wildered, 
frantic wretch. And sky and jungle held their 
breath in an ecstasy of alarm as the raving 
specter bounded from the crag into the shadow 
of death. 

As he skipped like a pale ghost out into the 
chasmy darkness, Tom, drawn to the spot by 
his mad exclamations, stood on the verge of 
tlie promontory, his face puffed by the night’s 
tlirottling. He leaned over into the weird 
gloom, and from its depths a shriek, like a 
tiger’s raging scream, leaped up and passed 
gratingly athwart the peak’s face, and died in 
tiie sky. 

‘‘Not dead!” he gasped. “Good heavens! 
Come.” And adown the peak, picking the 
way rapidly, swinging over from rock to rock, 
now tumbling, leaping here, sliding there; 
hesitating over a fissure, dropping in; scramb- 
5 


66 CALJPORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


ling on down, we were soon buried in the abyss 
searching everywhere for Yan. 

The day-break glowed in the east, the sun- 
rise purpled deeper and deeper the horizon 
and tinted the ice-like skies with blent pink 
and orange; the fresh airs of morning trooped 
in merry waves over canon and cliff, and puffed 
refreshing ether into every thing; star after 
star fell asleep in the damasked vault; and full- 
orbed day smiled in heaven and earth as if 
neither crime nor horror, nor aught save pu- 
rity and peace, had ever tossed about in the 
lap of time. 



CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 67 


CHAPTER IX. 

he’ll leap, leap — lost! 


HE day passed in a hapless search 
for Van. So, leaving him to his 
fate, we built a brush tent in a 
group of nutmeg-trees, and mined 
in a cramped placer on the creek. 
Several days had elapsed when, weighing our 
gold, we had many ounces to jewel our girdles. 
We were wakeful the following night with ex- 
ulting hopes. It was moonless, but the stars 
held levee, and we watched their glittering 
ranks arrayed in silvery robes as they passed 
and greeted and whispered and danced in the 
firmament, as if in a jubilee that restless earth 
soothed by Lethe lay dreaming. The mid- 
night hour had sighed itself away, and still 
we were awake watching the pale love-flashes 
they exchanged, when a shrill whoop from far 
up the nodding crag that slept over us sprung 
us to our feet; and we peered up the abrupt 
steep to detect the fool-hardy adventurer es- 
saying its descent. We could not distinguish 
him from many a shadowy appearance that 




68 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


clung to its bald bust; but he evidently de- 
scried us in the glare of our camp-fire, for he 
saluted our eager watch with a succession of 
screeching yells that hideously echoed along 
sky and chasm as he came dowm, down toward 
us. Every few minutes stones or fragments 
of turf fell from the gnarly crag into the mut- 
tering creek, when abruptly from a fissure a 
hundred feet above us a form, clad — save boots 
— like Adam before Eve fig-leafed him, glided 
out upon a buttress and stamped in madness, 
uttered a tempest of stark screams, and, lean- 
ing over, leered down upon us. The stars 
seemed to float into groups over him, and to 
hush their shuddering circles lest their rust- 
ling should startle him. Dead Man’s Creek 
muffled its lorn melody till each note was a 
stifled sob, and the dark crag grew black with 
awful horror that he recked not the peril. 
Tom’s ruddy face was aghast as he whispered: 

‘ Yan, Yan, wild as the fiend! Watch. He ’ll 
leap, leap — lost! ” And he glided into the 
crag’s shadow like a speeding specter, and I 
noted him scaling its steeps toward him. 

On diverting my eye again to the buttress, 
Yan was gone. I listened for a gnashing thud 
in the creek, but heard nothing only Tom’s in- 
cessant, quiet scramble up toward where he had 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 69 

stood. While scringing round a protruding 
rock, he looked aloft and discovered that he 
had disappeared. He looked down, bent over, 
listened, looked to me. I motioned him on up, 
and watched thither, every nerve a tortured 
tremor, when, right at my ear, pealed, like a 
blast from the pit, a maniac “ Ha, ha, ha! ” 

It tore my bones seemingly out of my flesh, 
and landed me a thousand feet from the spot, 
I hoped, but found that I’ had been so appalled 
as simply to fall in my tracks. And the mad- 
man’s blazing eyes and furious grip told me 
death was near. I either heard, or thought I 
heard, Tom’s groan of sympathy from the 
cliff’s face, and, like impersoned fear, I kept 
Van too busy holding me for any chance to 
strike. About the first thing I remember after 
the struggle began is Tom upon Van’s breast 
holding his right-arm and I kneeling on and 
lancing his left with dispatchful zest; and I 
was very thankful for my little knowledge of 
surgery. He bled refreshingly fast, I thought; 
and though his eyes were like globes of fire, 
and his struggles fierce, he weakened rapidly, 
and was soon in a faintish sleep, out of which 
I feared he would never awake. We dressed 
him in a ragged suit — best we had, part Tom’s, 
part mine — and about day-dawn he woke up 


70 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


with a feeble yawn. His recognition of us 
was instant, and he tried to stretch out his 
hand to greet us, but was too faint. He was 
moody at intervals most of the day, but toward 
evening he listened to a rehearsal of his last 
night’s pranks and perils, for he insisted till 
we told him the worst; and ere night fell we 
had packed him on the donkey by a circuitous 
route up to his cave. He showed us therein 
his cache of provisions and gold; and in the 
gloaming, whose soft tints were nestling in the 
dark between the crags, we spread down griz- 
zlies’ skins under the leafy nutmegs at its 
mouth, and talked by snatches or dreamed 
with open eyes the balmy hours far into the 
solemn night. 

“ I have been alone here,” he said, “ three 
months. The solitaire, as well as others, I 
find, needs labor to relieve of unrest. Ees- 
pite or diversity is longed for. So I have 
spiced solitude with toil. It rests the eye, the 
mind, the muscles even. Sleep is sweeter, 
and the wakeful day looks like a newer glory, 
when labor makes merry music for the throng- 
ing hours. The heart wrings out its sorrows, 
and rings in hopes which delight it amid the 
quiver and jostle of physical thuds. The 
placer I am mining is but a short distance 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 71 

above yours, and I have gathered among its 
crevices a fraction less than a thousand ounces. 
Unless you have done better, you must mine 
with me.” 

To this we acceded, and the days of the 
following month were golden for us. During 
the while Van was often restless, took sudden 
trips for days at a time into the sequestered 
jungle, and finally became resolute to voyage 
to Australia. Some phantasm on that distant 
shore seemed to call to him incessantly, and 
the vast stretch of sea between appeared at 
times but a step to him. And we remembered 
the letters had said that thither Miriam had 
been borne. 



72 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


CHAPTER X. 

MIRIAM THINKS, YES ! 


E appeared, of late, to be haunted 
by the image of his wife; and 
transient thoughts, like stray rays 
from angels, led him into glimpses 
of hope that some explanation ex- 
isted that would condone her course and leave 
her to him as a pure memory at least. It was 
seldom, indeed, that he mentioned the trouble. 
But now and then he briefly spoke of it, and 
we, with bated speech, would suggest the pleas- 
antest things possible germane to it. And so 
it became mingled with the c?mp talk one mid- 
night and to little purpose, except to make him 
silent for a long interval after mentioning it. 
In his silence, sight too seemed to have repressed 
all her mysteries, and so to have hushed them 
that the soft step of a beast or man crept to us 
from a thicket a hundred paces distant and then 
was still so long we forgot it and became en- 
thralled in reverie. But out of the strange 
hush upon every thing there bounded to us a 



CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 73 


short fierce roar, like that uttered by a savage 
in dire rage. It was followed by a furious rust- 
ling of the feathery boughs of the chaparral 
and hurried pistol-shots, and a dark body sprung 
from the covert across a broad bare rock and fell 
heavily upon the shrubs, thirty feet below its 
brink. In the instant a hatless man stepped 
to the rock’s edge, and peered down as if anx- 
iously watching some object. His form was 
distinctly outlined by the forest background 
and starshine, the pistol still gleaming in his 
hand. In answer to our hail, he said: “It is 
only a strange animal that disputed my pas- 
sage through the jungle, where I have been 
wandering all day. It hurt me but little, and 
is past injuring any one now. I wish it had 
fled. I ’m sorry I killed it.” 

It was Mack from the “Wait Mine.” And 
Van, laughing, said: “ Well, I ’m glad it is quiet 
at least, for its scream made my pate grate as 
though some savage ghost had torn off its 
scalp.” 

Mack let himself down the rock’s face by 
clinging to its wrinkles, and we examined the 
symmetrical brownish California lion he had 
slain, while he related how fortunately his first 
bullet arrested its arrowy leap upon him, when 
so near his person that its contortions rolled 


74 CALIFOBNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


it against him as he repeatedly fired till it des- 
perately plunged from him over the rock. 

He and Koth lingered near the lion when 
Van and I returned to the camp. And when 
presently they followed us, an unusual anima- 
tion was noticeable in Roth. Mack zestfully 
partook of the supper we hurriedly prepared 
for him; and leading the camp chat into good 
news from home, said quite naturally: “Van, 
I met awhile back a young man some twenty 
years old in San Francisco just from the Atlan- 
tic States. He claims to be your brother Will, 
and says that a letter from Roth to some one 
near your home in the East had led him to 
comre to the gold-fields to meet you. He went 
on to the trading-post where you and Roth first 
met in this country, hoping there to get tidings 
of you. He said your wife was well except 
being heartsiek to see you, and your little Mir- 
iam is as beautiful as the bird’s song is sweet.” 

During the last statement Van had risen to 
his feet and had leaned against the huge rock 
next the cave, one hand clasping his heart; and 
in his eyes shone the eagerness that one in a 
desert ready to perish would likely feel if near 
him living waters should suddenly murmur. 
But Mack, seeming not to notice the intense 
posture, added: “We arranged a plan of com- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 75 


munication, and two weeks ago lie had turned 
this way on Eoth’s path. He says all is well 
at home. The old place redeemed by your re- 
mittances is all your own; and that in it has 
been waiting and longing for you, all the weary 
months of your absence, as noble a woman, as 
true a heart to you, Yan, as ever pulsed death- 
less love. The letters to parties on this coast 
are base forgeriesT 

There Yan stood mute, motionless, slightly 
leant toward Mack; only the flush of face and 
awing eagerness of his eyes tokened life. And 
Mack continued, his tones tremulous and clear 
with faith’s passion in the words: “He asked 
me to say to you, if I should meet you before 
he did, that by the kindred blood which warms 
his heart, you may rely flpon this statement as 
pure truth; that aught adverse to it is utterly, 
utterly false.” 

There was a quiver in Yan’s frame ; he looked 
squarely into Koth’s face, now suffused with 
tears as well as unusual animation, and the old 
classmates bounded together. 

“And that ’s not all, Yan,” said Tom, as they 
resumed their places in the bear-skins. “Will 
has married Miriam’s sister, and she and Mir- 
iam are in Sacramento with their father, vow- 
ing to kill you on sight.” 


76 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


^‘Is it SO, Mack?” sharply queried Van. 

“ Yes,” Mack answered quite dryly, “ except 
the vowing.” 

“ Well,” said Van, “ killing is a greater favor 
than my injustice to Miriam merits. But, Tom, 
I never revealed to you and Quien the evidence 
of the story’s truth that was to me the convinc- 
ing witness. It is Miriam’s own letter avow- 
ing the affair and tearfully resigning to me our 
little girl. The style and chirography are so 
entirely her own that to doubt its genuineness 
never occurred to me until now. 

The hours tripped away unnoticed, for we 
were happy in the peace that had come to Van, 
who, in its quieting melodies, entertained us by 
the* rarest conversational powers within forma- 
tion and incidents so foreign to himself and 
scenes about us that we forgot that sorrow had 
ever cast a shadow on his life. 

The morning broke upon us while we were 
yet awake, and its sunrise sung us to sleep. 
We were roused by an old pioneer and his 
young comrade, upon whom Van’s eyes rested 
with caresses as he greeted him with, “God 
bless you, Will!” 

Will had collected, at the trading-post near 
our first mine, two or three of the forged let- 
ters, and we compared them with those Van 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 77 


had cached with his gold. The same hand was 
evinced in each, and those to Yan, when com- 
pared to genuine letters, were so nearly perfect 
imitations that even the expert could scarcely 
have rejected them. 

“ Van,” queried Will, as Van folded the let- 
ters and put them aside, ‘‘whose treachery is 
it? Think you, brother, that Lieutenant W. 
can have become so utterly vile as this ? Mir- 
iam thinks, ‘Yes.’ He threatened vengeance 
the hour your marriage in Florence was known 
in America. Her brother, you remember, gave 
you notice of it while you were yet in.Europe.” 

“But,” rejoined Van, “he met us on our re- 
turn with many pleasant expressions of good 
feeling, and often as we were together nothing 
to the contrary appeared. He removed with 
his large fortune, within the year, to his home 
in England, and I never heard if he ever came 
back to America.” 

“ When I was a boy,” said Will, “I thought 
him glorious, and remember well his splendid 
equipage and fine person and manners; his 
hazel eyes and light curly hair, too, are in 
mind. Dr. P. once berated him for his 
mockery of the poor, and said his heart was a 
hyena’s, while his mien was a lion’s. I know 
that the old did not trust him, with all his fair 


78 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


seeming. And I have heard your old college 
chum, Col. r., say that he was a heartless 
flirt, and base in resentments, equal to garland 
with favors those he had designs upon till they 
trusted him, while using others to bring them 
annoyance; that Italian revenge is honor to 
the masked cruelties his heart is base enough 
to execute. He certainly loved Miriam; and 
though you smiled at his rivalry, you dreaded 
lest his artfulness should supplant you; so 
at least F. used to say. And Miriam used 
to say that he could bide a life-time to find 
advantage to gratify a grudge.” 

“Where is Col. F.?” Yan inquired. 

“In Germany, when last heard from,” he re- 
plied. “And at the time the forged letters 
state he and Miriam were married, his mar- 
riage with Lieut. W.’s elegant cousin, Miriam, 
was celebrated, and they took steamer for the 
Old World. W. had been invited to the mar- 
riage, but excused himself on the plea that he 
was about to sail for Africa on a hunting ex- 
cursion of months.” 

“The wretch! ” exclaimed Loth; “he was on 
this coast four months ago. He it must have 
been, Quien, who killed the eagle the morning 
Yan left our camp for home, and came down 
into the fissure inquiring for him; whose light 


CALIFOBNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 79 


curly hair appeared under his black wig when 
it was awry the night he lodged with us; and 
went back across the mountains to the trad- 
ing-post, where, no doubt, he had personally 
repeated the forgeries of his infamous letters. 
You called my attention to his military style 
and phrases.” 

I cannot word-paint the expression in Van’s 
face when Eoth’s disclosures followed the pre- 
sumptions of Will. But anyone beholding it 
would say that a meeting between him and AV. 
would drop on the wings of the wind the he- 
roic philosophy of self-repression in his prom- 
ontory monologue, and reenact the scene of 
the moon-lit gulf, where Tom encountered him 
as the murdered man’s ghost, and nearly lost 
his life for his wisdom. 

AVith AVill and the old pioneer he sped from 
the peaks toward the plains that afternoon, 
journeying to Miriam at Sacramento. No plea 
for rest could induce him to wait till next morn- 
ing. Love’s smoldering fire had returned at 
the altar of wifely honor, and by its witchery 
was causing him to leap like the hart to the 
presence of that unequaled enchantress — a 
pure, self -immolating, loving wife. 

Mack remained to mine again with us. 


80 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


CHAPTER XI. 

THE PLAZA d’ ARMAS QUIVERS. 


NDUSTEY not being the special- 
ty of either of us, as it had been 
of Eoth’s forefathers, we could 
promptly improvise a hunt or a 
a ramble among the labyrinths 
and mountains to inspect the stones and plants 
and enjoy the beauties of leisure. In an ex- 
cursion of that kind we were arrested, on a 
rough summit, by a cracked voice in which the 
“carrajo” of Mexico, the “sacre” of France, 
and the abrupter profanity of the United States 
were ludicrously intermixed. The voice ap- 
proached us, then receded, and its mad jargon 
left no doubt that its owner was terribly in 
earnest about something. We glided a few 
paces southward, and again heard its raving 
imprecations. Presently the frantic jabberer, 
with a hop and a skip, pranced along a beaten 
path in thirty feet of the rocky clump in which 
we were hidden. His eyes stood out with 
lierceness ; his long white hair, matted, flopped 
about his face as he leaped on; and his cloth- 




CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 81 


ing dangled in tatters about his stubby per- 
son. In a minute or two he rushed back mut- 
tering, his hands clasping several stones; and, 
turning behind a massive rock, we knew by 
his voice that he had stopped, and judged by 
the whiz and smash that he was stoning some 
object. We were soon in position to see his 
crazy work. Eight or ten paces from him, 
leaning against a large pine, was the motion- 
less form of a bleeding Indian, with bow and 
arrows near him. The tree was barked in sev- 
eral places next his breast and cheek; and be- 
tween throws the maniac, leaping up and down, 
screamed in the very ecstasy of rage. We 
were but little aside from the range of his dev- 
ilish eye and its apparently dead object. As 
he hurled the last stone he galloped back in 
the path described, and Mack dashed to the 
lifeless Indian and bore him, with our aid, 
across a ravine into a tangle of young firs, 
where we were scarcely concealed ere the ma- 
niac was at his post again with another sup- 
ply of stones. Dropping them at his feet, re- 
taining one, he drew back to hurl it, when he 
was transfixed with surprise that his victim 
was gone. Now his manner wholly changed. 
He crouched and crept slowly, softly to the 
tree, came down upon his hands and knees, 
6 


82 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


and wormed himself with unspeakable cau- 
tion peeringly round it, sprung to his feet 
aghast, and sped away noiseless as a shadow, 
exerting every muscle to escape from the spot. 

We hurried with the Indian down the mount- 
ain, and on reaching a branch tried to resus- 
citate him. Poor fellow! he had gone nearly 
too far toward the eternal jungle of game — the 
’Digger Indian’s heaven — to be recalled; but 
when at last he opened his gleamy black eye, 
and knew he was receiving friendly care, it was 
worth much to the heart to see the unmistaka- 
ble joyfulness that printed its glad image upon 
his tawny face. By signs and grimaces he 
made us to understand that he was resting at 
the tree when, before he knew he was near, 
the madman rocked him; that he was rising 
to fly when a stone smote him on the temple 
and felled him; that he could n’t get away, but 
comprehended every thing till, after many 
throws, the maniac hit him in the forehead. 
He imitated his screams and fantastic leaps, 
and conveyed to us, by dismal groans and con- 
tortions, the horror he experienced ere he be- 
came insensible. 

The following afternoon Tom climbed a steep 
to kill a deer we had observed to pass that 
point several evenings. Becoming impatient. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 83 


he pushed on to the crags of Crazy Mountain, 
as we now called the one a mile east of us; 
and, killing a deer near its crown, he sought 
the haunt of the maniac to leave him a por- 
tion. Reaching the Indian’s tree, he pursued 
the path till it ended in a clump of hut-like 
rocks, among which were bones and feathers, 
but no sign of fire, evidently tokens of the 
maniac’s feast on raw game. Depositing part 
of his venison there, he had proceeded a third 
of the distance tentward when he was stag- 
gered by a blow from behind, and was furious- 
ly grappled by the madman, uttering screams 
of rage throughout the conflict. It was near- 
ly sundown when we heard mournful calls 
far up the labyrinth; and Mack exclaimed, 
‘‘That ’s Tom, and he is in trouble!” 

We ran rapidly till we met him, tottering 
under the maniac’s dangling body. He ex- 
claimed : “ I have killed the poor old man 1 I 
didn’t mean to; wished only to stun him to 
save myself.” 

He remained speechless after the few words 
of explanation, and looked like the statue of 
grief while we stanched his wounds that were 
bleeding profusely. As we turned quickly to 
examine the maniac, he knelt at his head. 
“Life,” I said, as the heart fluttered against 


84 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


my fingers; and tears gushed from his eyes, 
and he whispered: “If the mountain were a 
pearl, I would give it that the old man should 
live. I smote him only when I thought my- 
self dying in his strangling grip. For a world 
of crowns I wouldn’t be his slayer.” 

We hurried with the insensible form to 
the tent. His struggle with mad death was 
fearful. Shrieks of rage, howls, fierce efforts 
to beat us down and escape; feigned quiet, fol- 
lowed by precipitate attacks upon us; eyes of 
monstrous glare leaping and fastening upon 
one, then another; sleeplessness, railings of 
hot hate, were on the third day bound by the 
soft breath of sleep, whose sprites flooded him 
with subduing harmonies. For smiles rip- 
pled in his furrowed face till it lost its furious 
glow and wore a tender, cheerful expression; 
and he said in his slumber: “Play it again, 
Joli. Nothing, child, is so sweet to me as 
your voice and harp.” 

Mack whispered to us: “I thought so. I 
know him now. ‘Joli’ — pretty — is what he 
called his little girl; her brother, ‘Phonse;’ 
her mother, ‘Verite.’ His revolutionary prin- 
ciples forced him from France to New Orleans, 
where he taught me French. He left there 
for Cuba.” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 85 


But we were again listening to the old dream- 
er on liis bear-skin pallet, as he murmured: 
‘^The Plaza d’ Armas quivers to-night with 
merry beauties, and the flowers vie with their 
gems to tint them with witchery; but thou, 
Joli, art prettiest of the Havandras.” 

Then he breathed quicker for a little while, 
and was quiet But soon we heard him whis- 
per: “Sing it again, child; sing! It was your 
mother’s song— Verite’s song. Verite, my Ve- 
rite! ” 

And heaven gushed in his wrinkled cheeks. 
Not he£^'!‘en, but the love of long ago, when 
those cheeks were young and florid, lived again 
in his gray heart till it forgot that it was old 
and dreary now, and made his gladdest mem- 
ory a present reality. 

An hour plunged from the sun’s face, and 
the maniac’s sleep was too deep to be disturbed 
by its flight into oblivion, for as it traced its 
swift course he rested seemingly as rest the 
dead; and his face grew paler, and the veins 
grew blue upon his fair old brow ; and marble- 
like repose drew its white, hard sheet over his 
features; and through their half-opened eye- 
lids his eyes shone glazed and still, and his 
form moved not. But a glossy feather that 
had quivered on a quail’s crown, when held 


86 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


to his nostrils, veered softly to and fro as if 
bathing in an infant’s breath. So we knew 
that life yet kinged the struggle, and we watched 
in hope, moving noiselessly, like dumb chil- 
dren, about the gray misfortune who slum- 
bered in our care. 

Then the sun dipped behind a peak and left 
sunset on its brow, and cast upon the sky va- 
pors of pink; and soft- winged twilight drooped 
upon the cliffs and ravines, and sung a dreamy 
lullaby to nature till she fell asleep in dark, 
who opened her weird bosom to give her rest. 
And the stars peeped through the dusky pines 
upon us, and their glances melted in the dim 
haze; and the air whispered to the old sleeper, 
and, drawing its ether robes about it, floated 
on till midnight came, and early dawn; and 
yet he slept. And sunrise laughed at him 
from Crazy Mountain, and rolled down upon 
him floods of glory-beams that piled in pur- 
ple bubbles over him, and woke him up, and 
tossed him up on his elbow. He looked ear- 
nestly, like an astonished child, at each of us, 
at his own garb, his hands, the tent, sloAvly 
twirled his beard, and rested his wondering 
eye upon Mack. We held our breath. Some 
power — perhaps the mysterious flame in his 
eye — made us know that the passing mo- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 87 


ment was the crisis with the lost old man, who, 
sheerly exhausted, fell to the pallet, and whis- 
pered: “It’s Mack; it can be no one else.” 

We bathed his hands and face in warm 
water, and brought him drink from the cold 
rill hard by that seemed to bubble the merrier 
as the fainting old maniac, a maniac no longer, 
slept again. 

“ He ’ll die now,” said Tom. And his rough 
face looked beautiful for the womanly tender- 
ness that suffused it and gave to the words the 
heart-melody that thrills like notes from an- 
other, better world. But it was not pale death 
with the old Frenchman; for he awoke in his 
right mind, and very much strengthened. 

Unhappily his story was the oft-told one. 
What little reason gambling losses had left 
him was crazed by “ the flowing bowl,” till de- 
lirium tremens one night hustled him out into 
the jungle. His son Phonse, who we soon 
brought to him, had vainly sought him many 
days, and had given him up as lost forever in 
some abyss, like many another whose life and 
dream of wealth together had perished in the 
gold jungle, when, where, how, none shall 
ever know. A few days after he and Phonse 
had begun to mine near us, he came into our 
pit incapable of speech for a timej but pres- 


88 CALIFOIiNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


eiitly said: “You deem me silly, I know, and 
dread that I am going crazy again. But not 
so, not so. I have had hideous thoughts like 
rude dreams of late. Desolate loneliness, dark 
mountains, doleful abysses; granite clumps 
like crumbled towers, peopled with horrible 
forms and sounds; sleeplessness, mad ravings, 
struggles with fiends, murder, have been re- 
hearsing in my brain. Tell me, boys, where 
you found me. What doing? How surround- 
ed? Was blood upon my hands? Had I slain 
any one? Speak out. This suspense, this toil- 
ing back through memory’s wilds of grating 
forms and voices, will kill me.” 

And he wept only as the aged weep — not 
struggling with the grief, nor murmuring that 
it is, but as if sorrowing most of all that it 
had fallen upon others. Mack had stepped to 
his side, and with a woman’s intuition that 
never errs when it seeks to allay the tumults 
of the heart, replied: “We’ll tell you every 
thing ; will go to the places with you. You spent 
several weeks lost in the mountains before we 
met you. But be assured that you have killed 
no one. You did knock an Indian senseless, 
and would have sent him on the eternal hunt, 
but when you turned from him to procure more 
rocks to stone him with, we fled with him to 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 89 


our camp. He left us the next morning happy 
as a chief, loaded with provisions and old cloth- 
ing.” 

His face mantled with delighted relief, but 
he said, “Well?” 

“Well,” answered Mack, smiling, “Koth, 
there, always feels tired when heavy work is 
to be done, so he left us to pry up bowlders 
the following afternoon and went hunting up 
your mountain, for which you knocked him 
down as an intruder, and were strangling him 
when he stunned you with a knot, and started 
here with you. We heard him whooping, and 
went to his aid. When your brain-fever died 
out you recognized me, and have made us hap- 
P 3 ^ ever since by tarrying here with us. We 
will go up the mountain with you when you 
wish and examine the places where you lived.” 

Luckily a few months dropped into his 
hand many pounds of gold, and wafted him 
back to Cuba happy as a Frenchman can well 
be outside of a revolution. Indeed, it ap- 
peared that all he lacked to make him ecstatic 
was to be in Paris manipulating a jubilee of 
barricades. His articles of faith were two 
only: 

1. Eoman Church ism and monarchy are the 
bane of France. 


90 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


2. Kepublicanism is felicity. 

His words of the first were Heclaian slag 
at white heat. His words of the last were 
phrased ecstasies. 



CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 91 


CHAPTER XII. 

PIKE — THAT ECHO REHEARSES WITH A MUSIC 
SO STRANGE. 



OTH and the brown donkey were 
accompanied by another donkey 
when they returned from the 
nearest store, whither they had 
gone fifteen miles, over spurs and 
ravines, to make gastronomic discoveries. He 
said, as we were discussing the new donkey’s 
good points: “We shall need both, and many 
more, to pack our gold, after awhile, to some 
point that wagons can reach.” 

Mack’s eye twinkled at this naive revelation 
gf Tom’s gold dream, and danced as he observed 
the flood of reciprocal humor that washed the 
face of the Missourian — a tall, swarthy, frank, 
quiet yet sprightly specimen, whom also he had 
brought with him, and called Pike. He had 
helped him out of a desperate affray with some 
“claim -jumpers,” near the store, who had 
clubbed to kill him, as he would not peaceably 
yield most of his mine to them. His wounds 



92 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIFLI) SCENES, 


were slight, and he was soon in the placers delv- 
ing for their hid treasure with us. But they 
failed to pay in a few weeks, and making no 
new discoveries we moved many days south- 
ward. 

Pike left us much to ourselves on the route, 
for he often diverged to prospect, or hunt, or 
converse with the scattered miners; but never 
failed to find our camp of nights. His wood- 
craft was a marvel, and he convoyed us safely 
out of many a tangle of thicket and cliff. 

Once, about an hour after night-fall, he came 
to camp and displayed a quartz specimen of 
singular beauty and richness. The blent blue 
and white quartz, thickly studded with gold 
through and through in every part, caused it 
to sparkle in the fire-light like a clump of com- 
pressed stars. It weighed more than a pound. 
And Pike, as he held it in one and another po- 
sition, to show its value and varied beauty, 
said: “If a chap were to send this chunk o* 
beauty to his sweetheart, would n’t it entrance 
her? An’t it a memento? She ’d stow it away 
snug enough in her keepsake drawer, but she ’d 
wrap the chap up in her heart for good and 
alius.’ 

I give Pike’s words, but not as he would spell 
or pronounce them. He would spell “ memen- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 93 

to,” for instance, mi-inen-tevy and so pronounced 
it. Yet I am sure we will not catch the fresh- 
ness of his spirit so well on this plan as we 
would were he admitted to our presence in his 
own vernacular; for the reason that no trans- 
lation can give all the phases of the original. 
His speech put a spell upon Koth deeper and 
sweeter by far than the specimen had, for his 
eyes were dewy as if a softest memory had 
shaped a loving face in them, and he said in a 
flutter: “ Pike, I ’ll give you three hundred dol- 
lars for it, for Leina.” 

“No,” he answered, “can’t sell it. A wea- 
zel-headed Mississippian gave it to me to-day 
about ten o’clock. I was telling him who was 
my partners, and when I said Tom Pothleit, 
he sprung up out the pit, and looked about 
wild-like and said flutterously, ^ Where in 
h — 1 is he?’ So you see, Tom, he thinks you 
belong to tlie hot place, if you an’t there. 
But I told him you were n’t there yet, but were 
on the way with Mack and Quien somewheres 
in the jungle, and that it was no use trying to 
head you off. He give me this yellow rose 
quartz, and said: ‘Give it to Tom for his little 
girl, and tell him that he saved my life on the 
Isthmus when my comrades deserted me to 
die wdth cholera on the Chagres Eiver.’ ” 


94 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


“Alia! it is Skelt,” Tom replied; “but he 
would have got well anyhow.” 

“ Yes,” said Pike, “may be so; I d6 n’t know 
about that. But when he give it to me to 
bring to you, he said, ‘ It ’s nothing to send him, 
I know;’ and his. face twitched and he turned 
his eyes up a tree to keep me from seeing the 
drops in ’em. And may be so I would have 
been living too, for all the knives and pistols 
of them claim -jumpers; but it’s mighty fortu- 
nate, anyhow, that Tom Bothleit’s lively thumps 
and numb skull was atween me and some of 
’em.” 

Pike’s speech had an abrupt turn here, for 
a grizzly waddled along the side of the spur 
in pistol-shot ot us, and he added hurriedly, 
“ Do n’t shoot, do n’t shoot! ” 

The grizzly’s dunnish hair looked glossy in 
the star-light, and though he stood up full 
breast to us to survey us, he gave token of 
neither any great surprise nor of any fear nor 
rage. He appeared like a huge old darky, 
full of fun, waiting for a company of boys 
whom he loved, to begin a frolic. We gave 
him no signal, so he sauntered on over rock 
and log and spur — hunting, may be, his beloved, 
who, true to the sex, was leading him a race. 
When he disappeared, we restored our unused 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 95 


revolvers to their belts, and listened to a nar- 
rative from Pike, as follows: “There’s game 
in grizzlies, boys. Don’t provoke ’em ’cept 
you are saffe. Unless you brain ’em, or heart 
’em, or shiver their backbones, or unj’int their 
necks first shot, you are bound to go under. 
That ’s why I told you not to shoot just now. 
If yoii had n’t killed him first fire, thar would 
have been more skeletons than his left here. 

“Old Eackansac pulled trigger with me 
among the Comanches an’ in Mexico. He were a 
brave one, and as cool and as hot in a scrimmage 
as Sattan would hev him . He could lay his bul- 
let on a dime, at off-hand a hundred yards, four 
out o’ five times. He got mad arter grizzlies 
when he come to this country, and was alius 
a-slopein’ through the mountains lookin’ up a 
carouse with ’em. He trimmed the hide off a 
heap o’ ’em too, ind sold enough o’ their keer_ 
cases to keep him a-going. One Sunday he 
were a-fixin’ his rifle mighty keerful, an’ we 
knew he were for bars that day. We told him 
to stop it and stay in camp Sundays anyhow, 
but you might as well have cavorted roun’ a 
hithen. I follered him over the ridge an’ 
tried to decoy him back, for I felt sartin he 
were wrong, and if he took that hunt it were 
his last one. 


96 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


“ My mother used to say to me when I were 
a boy, ‘Eacket, quit your pranks when Sun- 
day comes. Feed your dog well, jan’ let him 
sleep all day. No rabbits of Sundays, Eacket, 
do you hear. Ef you hunt o’ Sundays, some- 
thing bad will come of it.’ And all the time I 
was inducin’ old Eackansac to turn back, I 
seemed to be a-hearin’ her blessed voice talkin’ 
it all over to me. But at last he told me to go 
to — well, Bom’ers, and he would go a-huntin’ 
ef he went thar, too. An’ he went to both of 
’em may be, a-huntin’ anyhow. 

“ Night arter night come, and no Eackansac 
were heered of. But not long arter that, some 
hunters found a skeleton ; a bone here, another 
thar, a broke rifle, an’ close by another skeleton 
of a big bar with a bowie-knife stuck in the 
skull. He ’d shot that bar through the shoul- 
ders, for thar was the bullet-holes, and druv his 
knife into his brain, for he were game anywhere ; 
but the bar killed him for all that. An’ the 
wolves had gnawed all the meat off them like 
they had been beasts together. But that bar 
would never hev got him without help.” 

“ Stuff! ” sneered Tom ; you know nobody 
helped the bear.” 

‘‘ It was n’t nobody,” he retorted, “ it were a 
misfoi’t’nate providence taking keer of Sunday 


CALIFOIiXIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 97 


and leaving its despiser nn protec ted-like to 
perish. I liev bad luck, plenty of it; but it 
come in a honester way than insultin’ Sundays 
to bring it on. Kackansac would hev killed that 
bar afore he growled, ef it were on his own 
day. He knew he were wrong, for he told me 
so just afore he told me to go to — som’ers. It 
are better to rest on Sunday instid o’ trampin’ 
on to it like hithens.” 

As a rock from the bluff splashed in the 
branch near us, an alarmed deer bounded past 
chased by coyotes. We fired into the pack 
that scattered with affrighted yelps in every 
direction. 

“ Them creeters,” said Pike, ‘‘ alius ’mind me 
of politicians and editurs that puffs whisky, 
and them that sells it, but howl and snaps at laws 
and folks anent it. Them and Sattan laps at 
the same puddles.” 

‘‘Doubted,” interjected Tom; “for Satan 
do n’t use water by drops even.” 

“ Ef you ’d ever noticed,” he rejoined, “ them 
that writes up whisky-shops an’ them that run 
’em, you ’d a known I did n’t mean puddles o’ 
water. They look like they ’d sucked brandy- 
bottles until they was puffed with red Sattans. 
Free whisky an’ free lunch, without water, is 
their choice dishes. A kag o’ brandy will buy 
7 


98 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


’em. They put p’ison, tlieirn^ on all that’s 
good, an’ honors the wust things; like coyotes 
that fondle wolves, an’ gnaw in pieces fawns.” 

‘‘You will never get to Congress, Pike,” re- 
plied Tom. 

“I am not a-wantin’ to,” he said. “Editurs 
make Congressmen, an’ the pure editurs can 
make too few on ’em. So the wust can’ dates 
goes thar. Old Zack Taylor couldn’t stand 
them; they smelt him to death in a year, and he 
were a hard one, seasoned in the Mexican war. 
It takes lawyers like you to stand Congress; 
they is soaked fur it.” 

The reports drawn from our revolvers by the 
coyotes were repeated several times by echo, 
who threw airily back to us every halloo we ut- 
tered, as though the sprites of dell and hill were 
pelting one another with exhilarating ether 
from the faces of the cliffs. By this time the 
coyotes, very like small, trim, light-brown dogs, 
flanked us, and had gathered on the thicket’s 
border eastward. They were not in position 
to be echoed, so we escaped a multiplex riot 
of shrewish howls adapted to evoke imps and 
set them firing rock and air in a fury of disgust. 
Our echo would not echo them. 

On changing our position a score or more of 
steps, we were greeted wdth two other echoes 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 99 


in addition to tlie first — one of which, far away 
in the labyrinth, threw back our words to us 
in tones so musically soft that we closed our 
ears to every other sound and stood hearken- 
ing for its tones as the infant listens for the 
mother’s voice. Mack said, after we resumed 
our seats: “That echo rehearses with a music 
so strange that the heart goes out after it as 
after some sweet hope long lost, throwing back 
tenderest calls to approach and be blessed. 
Echo is a word’s ghost. The w^ord dies, but re- 
peats itself in echo. Echo is life’s ghost. 
Life hushes in death, but over in the regions 
beyond repeats itself in echo, and moves on in 
echo, in purity in the strange land of spirits if 
it had been pure in the body. For as the sound 
is here, so is it on yon crag in echo. If it be 
musical and clear here, it is the same over there 
in echo, only more so. If it be the reverse 
here, so is it there in echo.” 

“I thank you for the thought. Mack,” said 
Eoth ; “ it is tender and chaste like woman. And 
how many good lives are here that shall exist 
beyond the boundaries of time-, in added tints 
of glory by God’s hand, to adapt them best 
for residence in heaven but should be echoed in 
other lives here! Once upon the sea, in a pal- 
ace-steamer eight or ten days from port, we 


100 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


saw, at the setting in of darkness, far away di- 
rectly in front of the ship’s prow, a lurid star 
rise out of the billows and dip back, rise and 
re-dip for many minutes, growing larger and 
larger each bath. Then it shone steadily just 
above the billows, enlarging, dropping into the 
sea, springing up again, quivering, nodding, 
staring, flaming, brighter and larger meeting 
us. We climbed upon chairs and benches and 
rope-coils, and into the cordage of the myste- 
rious masts throwing their arms about wildly 
above us; and all eyes were bent upon the 
witching wonder walking the dark waves. It 
nestled on them, oscillated, expanded, rolling 
toward us, looking in the darkness like some 
magic wonder riding the sea. 

“ Presently one whispered, ‘A burning ship! ’ 
and the words moaned from heart to heart till 
the agony voiced them in a shout of many voic- 
es, ‘A burning ship! a burning ship! ’ Then, 
dumbed by the horror, still we watched. Soon 
the thunder of its machinery and laboring 
furnaces and the crash of its frantic wheels 
were heard in the thick night, and wild, brave 
calls from its signaling whistle shouted athwart 
the dark and the deep. Still right onward it 
rushed, and right onward we plunged to it. 
Now we had so nearly approached that the star 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 101 


had severed into many great fragments, pour- 
ing shine out of and about the brilliantly lighted 
ship, from as many rifts in its white sides and 
glowing roof, till itself and objects on its gal- 
leries, the men, women and children peopling 
its decks, were visible to us. And these were 
observing us as eagerly and as safely as we were 
beholding them. And all the way, thirty-six 
hundred miles, and all the time — day, night — 
that and this had been bounding, on the wings 
of steam and storm, over an ocean air-line, 
rushing together; wiien, as we thought, ‘They 
will surely crash into each other and sink to- 
gether here,’ this veered to the west, that to the 
east. Each tossed rockets into the night’s 
cloud, and their masters trumpeted messages 
to each other as they passed, and the passen- 
gers cheered across the yawned wave. Then 
each veered into the watery air-line again, and 
away, away over mountain and chasm of sea, 
each strained to its destined port, bearing its 
life-freight safe to shore at last. Each seemed 
an echo of the other. 

“ To me, the incident was a reminder of pure 
characters on the sea of life — each to trust true, 
neither in another’s way, though the same path 
pursuing; voyaging this way and that, increas- 
ing knowledge, hopefully signaling each other 
on the throbbing billows.” 


102 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


“It is a joy to look upon such characters,” 
said Mack, “to hear the flutter of their sails, 
to see the plunge of tiieir prows, the dip and 
plunge and roll, their onward push, the stretch 
and swell of their taut cordage, the glint of 
their portly sides — for all within is peace and ' 
good-will to God and man. They are floating 
havens, illuminated and furnished to save the 
wrecked on the main, to brave the tempestuous 
breakers till the tossed voyagers are safely tided 
to the quiet shore. 

“ Such men, such women are shower and sun- 
shine to the world. They invest wastes with 
verdure, make the desert heart to blossom as 
the rose. They bind up, build up, pacificate. 
Everywhere — some greater, some less — upon 
life’s seditious floods they sail . In fog, in clear, 
in belt of calms, in belt of storms, off on the 
trade-wind currents, fanned by the breeze, 
rocked by the hurricane, each in place strug- 
gling forward, drifting life-boats after the lost, 
availing all means for the ministry of happi- 
ness, dispensing life and light in storm and 
quiet till they shall knock at the eternal docks, 
course finished, sails furled, steam off, wheels 
at rest, the ‘ Good Master ’ aboard inspecting, 
saying, ‘Well done.’ This world were happi- 
er echoing their pure principles.” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 103 


In the lull of conveiisation now, we were 
startled by the grating rattle of a serpent that 
struck over the spot whence we had leaped at 
the warning. It coiled in a moment again, 
its tremulous rattle whizzing in its ire; but 
Pike’s revolver flashed bullets through its spot- 
ted folds, and it stretched itself out and died; 
and Pike said: “Tom, I heerd you say onct, in 
one of your tantrums, that ^demagogues in 
Church and State, like them that tarries long 
at the wine, was rancid moralities, cancerous 
intellectuals, poisonous serpents, effluviating 
the sea of humanity; an’ that the wise should 
keep apart from them.’ This spotted fellow is 
one of their sort, and I will drag him to the 
coyotes at the thicket. Them snappy, snarly 
howlers will soon put him out o’ sight, more ’n 
you are likely to do with your ‘demagogues in 
Church and State,’ as you call ’em. Thar ’s too 
many to echo them brazen, imperdent, piznous 
kerakters. An’ nothin’ ekels ’em on arth in 
’front’ry, ’cept your ’maginary tons o’ gold.” 



104 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

PHANTOM OE NO PHANTOM, HE SHALL NOT DIE 
IN THE COLD. 



HE gold phantom beguiled us in- 
to unfrequented placers, in a re- 
gion so rugged that even Indian 
trails had disappeared, and bus- 
ied us in collecting their nuggets 
of gold, which, whatever their virgin purity, 
were small and scarce as tears of joy. Yet we 
noted little else. Even November was pass- 
ing freezingly away, and still gold’s song, from 
among the ice-coated rocks, made us heed- 
less of the thickening mists marshaling among 
the heights, videttes of the storm, rising out 
of the sea to break in sleet and snow upon the 
dwellers among the peaks. 

The maniac tempest now rolled over us, bank- 
ing the snow -clouds upon the cliffs where, 
breaking in pieces, they leaped into the placers 
like sheeted thunders, and congealed in white 
waves upon every thing; and in a few days the 
jungle of mountains appeared like a stranded 



CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 105 


snow- world, upon which icy blasts incessantly 
poured foaming breakers that froze to it as if 
to sink it in a sea of ice. We took the alarm 
at last, and struck out in the temjjest in quest 
of a softer clime. We had tramped two days 
through the sleety wilderness, and, bewildered 
by the blasts, had turned again and again upon 
our trail in the sunless, tempestuous days. 
Mack had sprained his foot by an evil slip upon 
the ice, and Pike had tumbled into a gorge, 
and sunk to his shoulders in the snow-drift 
at its bottom, bruised and stunned by the fall. 
And we had just entered a vista winding along 
precipices and dismal caiions when he fell 
again, tripped by a little snowy hillock; and 
puffing the snow from his lips, he exclaimed, 
“ It are a dead man frized by himself, sartinly ! 
Unkiver him, boys, unkiver him quick! ” 

On opening the mound we found the pale 
sleeper yet with life; and we rubbed him 
roughly, no doubt, but with kindly intent, till 
his breathing was healthful; and wrapping 
blankets round him, we kindled a fire and 
camped for the night. The snow-man seemed 
quite restored in an hour or two, and told us 
that he had wandered from a hunting party 
escaping out of the mountains. In the inter- 
vals of the storm he walked along the crest of 


106 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


the ridge and peered into the gulches as if 
watching for the coming of some one or essay- 
ing to settle the question of our whereabouts 
— restless, though we strove to make him at 
ease with us. 

The night was black, but the winds were at 
rest for awhile; and though the snow fell thick- 
er, our brave fire shot red sparkles among its 
white flakes as though cheering night trying 
to soothe the sobbing storm upon her bosom. 
We had improvised a brush tent, Avhose twigs 
in their robes of sleet looked like jets of shim- 
mering glass, and we had closely grouped up- 
on our blanketed ice-couch; and all was hush 
save the soft patter of the snow-flakes fall- 
ing into bed upon bough and rock. Ere- 
bus himself seemed satisfied with the rare 
gloom of our situation, when a quick shriek, 
like that of sudden death, shivered through 
the icicles over our heads and echoed from 
glon to glen. We sprung to our feet, but stood 
motionless. Earth’s dead seemed to be tramp- 
ing lightly, running to and froT around us. 
Each snow-robed shrub appeared in the mo- 
ment to be a sheeted ghost started from its 
grave by the horror, and the dark full of sor- 
rowful whispers. 

A glance revealing to me that Eoth and 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 107 

Snow-man were gone, I ventured into the eddy- 
ing dark, where the flash and report of a pis- 
tol guided me toward the place of the scream. 
Snow-man was expostulating with Eoth and an 
angry Mexican, who lay grappled on the snow 
too flercely to use their weapons again. We 
separated them, and as they rose up Tom said: 
“ I do n’t believe a word of it. It was not a 
tiger’s scream; it was a human voice.” 

“ No,” replied Snow-man; “ I know the Mex- 
ican, I tell you; believe him.” 

Finding that neither was hurt, we moved to 
the fire, where the Mexican stated that, trying 
to pierce the mountains to where a few com- 
rades awaited him to move southward, he was 
nearing our camp when some animal bounded 
upon him with a scream, but, missing its mark, 
sped on down the spur; and as he rushed for 
the fire Tom met him, denied his explanation, 
and the fight ensued. 

“Never mind it, Sehor,” said Both pleas- 
antly; “you are cold and hungry. I am glad 
the ball missed you. Draw nearer the fire. 
Here is a pan of venison and bread; welcome; 
help yourself.” 

He ate eagerly, and in a short while appeared 
to sleep soundly by Snow-man. It seemed but 
a few minutes after that I was roused silently, 


108 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


and beckoned aside by Tom, who said, “ I have 
found him.” 

'"‘Found who?” I queried, vexed at being 
waked from a much-needed sleep and led out 
into the whizzing snow. 

“ AVhy, the man who shrieked,” he whis- 
pered. “ He ’s coiled up at the foot of the 
precipice down yondel — crazy, I guess — near- 
ly dead.” 

“Tom,” said I, “you are forever at some- 
folly. Have you been groping about in this 
storm and darkness, where one can scarcely be 
secure by day, hunting a phantom of your own 
frenzied brain? ” 

“Yes, I have,” he retorted; “and if you 
won’t help me bring him to the fire — as Pike 
and Mack are both lame — I ’ll drag him here. 
Phantom or no phantom, he shall not die in 
the cold.” 

I have thought since that even at that time 
it had become a mental habit of mine to ques- 
tion Eoth’s sanity without being conscious of 
it. His conduct on occasions was so apart 
from the customary channels of human nat- 
ure that are cramped and selfish, seldom fill- 
ing up and flooding over with prompt, free, 
fresh, brave concern for the unfriended tot- 
terers along life’s way, that at least he was 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 109 


unique to me; and though he controlled me 
usually, I imagined it was strength humoring 
weakness. So I skirred out into the icy chap- 
arral wdth him; and, aided to pick our way 
among the bent sleet-clad underbrush by the 
snowy sheet that earth had drawn over her 
bosom, we soon came to the senseless man, and 
bore him up to the camp. In our absence the 
Mexican and Snow-man had vanished. 

The wound upon the victim’s head, inflicted 
by his fall over the bluff, caused his insensi- 
bility; for that in his side, betraying the Mex- 
ican’s knife, was upon a rib. The knife had 
passed through a girdle of gold and glanced, 
so the gash next his heart barely sundered the 
skin. Only the depth of snow where he fell 
saved his life. His slumbers were fitful, and 
he murmured as he slept of the treachery (T 
his comrade. We tended him anxiously till 
smiles from the fountain of dreams bubbled 
in his face; and the words he muttered were 
of home and boyhood and dear faces. The 
hope in his voice, the life and quiet of his 
smiles, carried us back across the continent 
through the moaning tempest to childhood’s 
scenes of peace and safety. And the melodies 
of the hearth and play-ground, that were in 
the early barbaric days of the gold-fields dews 


110 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 

to the fevered miners, were crisply sung by us ; 
and their notes seemed to impart to those of 
the fitful tempest a prankish dash that divest- 
ed it of gloom and filled it with fun. We al- 
ternated in keeping guard and sleeping— sleep- 
ing mostly; for when the camp was astir in 
the morning we discovered that Roth and the 
wounded man were gone. Pike thought they 
were in pursuit of the Mexican, and said: 
‘‘Tom’s saft- headed, specially about other 
folks’s wrongs. He’d as lief foller Sattan 
himself ontil they ’s rectified. He ’s right on- 
til his heart saftens like a gal’s; then he’s 
onreasonable-like, and will do that way that ’s 
got the least sense in it. He’s toled the man 
off arter them chaps, and like as not the Mex- 
ican’s knife are in his ungumpsious heart afore 
now Ef he’s not dead, he are arter some- 
thing cleverish, though; and,’ he added after 
a moment’s reverie, “ ef thar ’s any chance to 
make trouble of it, he ’ll do it, and be in the 
middle of it himself, like the nateral he are. 
He might er took me along to help him out 
on it.” 

“ Perhaps,” I suggested, “ the man became 
crazed while we slept and wandered away, 
and Roth is trying to beguile him into camp 
again.” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. Ill 

“Like as not,” lie answered, “like as noi: 
for it ’s like him a-wanderin’ over these snow- 
quags in the marssyless storm arter a fren- 
zied man with a insane sperit. The man will 
nateraliy run into the wust places, and he’ll 
follow him or die, and palaver with him every- 
where he goes. He’ll outfool the fool, and 
break both o’ their necks.” 

Pike was active as a catamount, though he 
appeared gangling and clumsy. He never 
flinched in danger, though at times he seemed 
fearful; for occasionally he would laugh off 
serious provocations or be silent, till, not read- 
ing him rightly, parties presumed too far, and 
were surprised by fierce frays, in which he was 
certain to manipulate victories. His attach- 
ment to Both was ardent, and the more so for 
the very traits he was now decrying. We im- 
mediately followed on the nearly effaced tracks 
of Bothleit and the wounded man through the 
thickening tempest till they diverged, and, 
leaving the stranger’s foot-prints to me, Pike 
pursued Tom’s. I traced the white tracks zig- 
zagging from bluff to bluff till it led to the scene 
of the Mexican’s treachery. Here I saw the 
man looking about in the ravine below, and, 
attracting his attention, he looked to me and 
said: “I have given you more trouble; sorry 


112 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 

you came after me. I was seeking the spot of 
last night’s peril. This is it. I must have 
fallen from the bluff to your right, for I found 
my pack lodged in the brush at its base. Noth- 
ing lost. It has twenty pounds of gold in it 
besides my blankets. I ’ll meet you round tlie 
angle.” 

As we sauntered to the camp he told me he 
had left Both asleep, he supposed, and said: 

“ I am going to , to meet my partner; am 

a Yirginian; been lost in the mountains two 
days. In my wilderment every vista in the 
jungle seemed a trail. Several times each day 
I crossed my own tracks; and the first time I 
did so I pursued them hastily, and shouted to 
the man ahead of me, as I supposed, from 
time to time before discovering the mistake. 
I came upon the Mexican intent to cross a tor- 
rent. He politely replied to my inquiries, and 
proposed, as I was far astray, to pilot me to 
his friends’ camp to spend the night, whence 
I could proceed safely and without difficulty. 
On nearing your camp, after worrying in the 
darkness through tangles of spurs and chap- 
arrals some hours, he said it w^as the camp we 
were seeking. But he seemed to be restive 
and paused — proceeded, paused. I cannot ac- 
count for it, but I felt in the moment an al- 


CALIFOBNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 113 


most tangible liorror seize me — a sense of mur- 
der’s presence; its red corpse with stretclied- 
open eyes seemed to glare at me, and in the mo- 
ment his thuggee-stab staggered me, and I knew 
I was falling from the precipice, when sensibili- 
ty fled . The next things I remember are a sharp 
pain and a feeling of being wrapped in a blank- 
et, and the words: ^Tliere, an’t you more com- 
fortable so? I am Tom Kothleit. I’ll stick 
to you like a brother. You shall be at the lire 
presently.’ I could not speak, could not move; 
but 1 recalled every thing. My heart gave a 
bound of strange jpy, a tender hand glided over 
my wounds, my brain reeled, whirled, whirled 
and was insensible again. The rest you know. 
But is not the Mexican’s conduct unaccounta- 
ble ? If robbery was his object, why did he de- 
lay till we neared the fire? If murder only, 
his opportunities were many, and where human 
intervention was impossible.” 

As the day wore away, he and Mack tested 
their strength by climbing up the mountain 
two hundred feet or so to a bench from whose 
points, in intervals of the snow-fall, they 
could behold the wonders the frost had 
painted on crags and peaks and forests near 
and distant. It was an hour to night when 
Pike returned with a fine deer. He replied to 
8 


114 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


my query concerning Eotli by saying: “The 
ornery wretch is all right, except he ’s been be- 
side himself more’n ever all the time; an’ he 
are nearly frized and starved. He seed Mack 
and the stranger upon the side o’ the mountain, 
and he are gone thar to lead ’em into another 
fool scrape, as he has me to-day. I ’ve limped 
nigh on to fifteen mile, for’ards and back’ards, 
a-huntin’ him in this hurricane to fetch him in. 
He were goin’ right from camp when I spied 
him; and he stands to it that he were a-goin’ 
right all the time. He were the wust lost man 
you ever seen. AVhen I showed him the camp 
smoke he stuck to it, it were a ice-spout and 
nothin’ else, till he saw the man up thar on the 
bench on the mountain with his head bound 
up. He carcumvented him this morning on- 
til he seen he weren’t ahhemted, he called it; 
and then went to hunt Snow-man and the Mex- 
ican. But here they come now.” 

“Who?” said I, jumping up; “Snow-man 
and the Mexican?” 

“'No, you wood-head ! ” he snapped out ; “ but 
Tom and t’ otliers. He says when the uncorn- 
monest fool were made, I were the specimen 
turned out; that you would hev been but for the 
reason nothin’ can’t be made out o’ nothin’.” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 115 


CHAPTER XIV. 

he’s follerin’ sattan. 



N a day or two we journeyed from 
“Tempest Camp,” as we had 
named the place, and at noon 
lunched standing, using the don- 
keys for tables, the waltzing snow- 
flakes giving the air of sprightliness and neat- 
ness to board and contents. Having, Califor- 
nia-like, christened the wounded man Virgin- 
ia, the name of the State he hailed from. Pike, 
munching a bit of frozen venison, said: “ Vir- 
giny, ef Mexico had ’ave plunged his knife, the 
last blow, a inch or two nearer his aim, you 
could n’t ’ave been here a-eatin’ deer-steak off 
of donkeys. You ’d ’ave been under a big snow- 
drift friz harder nor a icicle.” 

Happy smiles suffused his face at Pike’s cool 
recall of the perils he had survived, but his re- 
ply startled the group, not because Providence 
was habitually sneered at in the gold-fields — 
for the reverse is true — but by reason of the rev- 
erence and intensity of faith and feeling his 
simple reply conveyed, as he said: “Yes, but 


116 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


Mexico’s knife in the snows of the Sierras was 
foiled by a father’s whispers in the far-away 
mists of Chesapeake Bay, speaking my name 
in the ear of God/’ 

“It were curious whispers,” Pike replied, 
“that turned aside that Mexican’s knife. His 
sort are true to Sattan, and together murder is 
almost easier to them than mercy is to God. 
There are many clever Mexicans, but he were n’t 
one.” 

“Only soul- whispers,” he said, “that God 
answered by the angel that dropped me off the 
precipice from the stab of Mexico that grazed 
next the heart.” 

“ But it looks to me,” rejoined Pike, “ ef a 
angel had interfered atwixt you and Mexico, 
he ’d a-drapped ii im instead o’ you over the bluff 
and friz him thar ’tarnally. I believe, though, 
that prayers brings heavenly folk to keep arth- 
ly ones safe sometimes. Esau were injured by 
Jacob, but Jacob prayed and the angels of 
God met him afore Esau did, and saftened 
Esau’s heart to forgive, till he ran an’ kissed 
Jacob. I have alius sided with Esau in that 
family trouble. The bold, poor, keerless, big- 
hearted fool Tom, thar, is just like him.” 

“Some teach,” I interposed, “that Bible 
statements of angelic rescues are as preposter- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENEO. 117 


ous, as charming) as replete with chimera as 
with beauty, and should be eliminated from 
the faith of man.” 

“Such counsel should have no following,” 
said Virginia. “In its last analysis it is only 
brassy brilliance. And he who teaches it would 
rid his race of a pestilence, were he to enact 
Ahithophel in a Bible statement suggested by 
these donkey tables; it reads: ‘When Ahitho- 
phel saw that his counsel was not followed, he 
saddled his ass, and arose, and gat him home to 
his house, to his city, and put his household in 
order, and hanged himself, and died, and was 
buried in the sepulcher of his father.’ ” 

“And,” suggested Tom, “it was not the skep- 
tic literati, whose effrontery scarcely equals 
their absurdities and shallowness, who said to 
the king, ‘My God hath sent his angel, and hath 
shut the lions’ mcuths, that they have not hurt 
me,’ but Daniel, ‘skillful in all wisdom, under- 
standing science, and kneeled upon his knees 
three times a day, and prayed before his God.’ 
And, Quien, with the doubts you rehearse, you 
may as well take Virginia at his word, go like 
Ahithophel and die, and be buried in the sep- 
ulcher of your father; it will be warmer than 
this snow-storm.” 

“Tom,” interposed Pike, “you are flutter- 


118 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


Bomer of words nor a flutter-mill are o’ water- 
draps. Why did n’t you tell him at onct, and be 
done with it, that the Scriptur says thusly and 
so; an’ef he ’s no sensibler than to believe rock- 
head sciencers afore Scriptur, he’s follerin’ 
Sattan and agoin’ to him. That ’s your mean- 
in’, the whole on it.” 




CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 119 


CHAPTER XV. 

SNOW-BALLING WITH SNOW-CLOUDS. 


HE next day’s slow course filled 
us with dismay. Alp-like groups 
environed us. We were going 
into instead of out of the Sier- 
ras. The clouds, like moving ice- 
worlds, grated and fretted over us. Stalactic 
icicles fell in fragments along our frigid way, 
or depended from the saplings to the snow- 
beds. The iced firs and pines, whose foliages of 
prismy leaves, like snow-blossoms, were ever 
whispering the tempest, dropped their pearly 
petals upon us. The clumpy thickets, each twig 
a crystal, limbs interlocked, holding specimen 
brilliants of varied shapes molded by the ge- 
nius of the frost, made the waste look like a 
‘‘World’s Fair” of fine glass — each tiny and 
larger vessel ringing melodies at pleasure of 
-®olus; while creation — bathing, ever bathing 
in the snow-floods, throwing upon every thing 
shrouds woven by the spirits of the storm — 
waited above, beneath, about us, till we felt like 
muffled sighs tossed froin blast to blast. 




120 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


We were lost in the wild of ice, floundering 
in the Sierras’ sea of snow. Pike stood upon 
his head ‘‘to git the right bearin’s,” he said; 
Virginia whistled “ Yankee Doodle;” Tom fol- 
lowed Mack and me from shrub to shrub as 
we chopped tender branches and trailed the 
sleet off for the donkey’s forage, and charged 
us to embalm and send him home to Leina; 
“for,” he said, “she would n’t like for me to be 
buried in any such a devilish country as this.” 

Just then we were arrested by Pike’s shrill 
whistle, and looking in the direction he pointed 
we beheld a splendid buck bounding across the 
plateau; and, as he passed a thicket, a grizzly 
darkened his pale path, quick as a twinkle, and 
slew him in mid-air. Between foot-lift and 
footfall glowy with life, rigid in death, bruin 
sprung to his victim and placed his paw upon 
him, then bent over and took his neck between 
his jaws and crunched it, and reared upon his 
haunches and leered at us. 

“He’s a Sattan!” exclaimed Pike; “come, 
we ’ll speak to him with rifles ’bout that trick.” 

As we approached, the bear started into the 
thicket, but dashed suddenly back with a fierce 
growl, bounding upon us amid pelting bullets, 
and was in less than twenty paces of us when 
Pike’s rifle was leveled and fired, apparently in 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 121 


the same moment, and he tossed back — a quiv- 
ering mass— for the bullet had crashed through 
his brain. 

“ That shot saved us,” said Mack, “ for not 
another pierced him. I shot for the heart.” 

“And you did n’t miss it fur,” said Pike as 
he pointed to a little red spot; “ that draps from 
mighty near your mark. A old Texas-ranger, 
though, do n’t often make as bad a shot as that, 
Mack. You an’t in practice of late. Shot ’mos’ 
too quick. An Injun would a-got you, ef your 
pistol hadn’t a-follered up your rifle quick, and 
truer o’ aim.” 

Taking from him his robe of fur to sleep upon, 
and a few pounds of steak, Ave left the carcass 
with the greater part of the deer, and a half- 
mile farther on camped in an angle of huge 
rocks. Shortly after dark the howl of hoarse- 
mouthed wolves, mixing with the shriller voices 
of the tempest, assured us that bruin and his 
buck were soon to be no more, even in carcass. 
Several crept across the fire-line Avatching us 
Avith glarry eyes, Avhose glances we answered 
by bullets to the death of one of the band. He 
fell when about to attain his AA^olfy ambition, 
a fat carcass; like man halted by death’s bolt 
in the very glitter of the carcanet he rejects 
heaven for, but is never to wear. Indeed, Ave 


122 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


were all near concluding that we would ex- 
change all the linked wonders of gold to be out 
of the congealed wonders of nature, that froze 
us in on every side. 

At times through the night the tempest sough- 
ing through the jungle, growling round the crags, 
was appalling. Every now and then a monster 
crash wailed in the darkness as a peak shook 
from his brow a midnight avalanche; while 
occasionally the awful rush and roar were sev- 
eral times repeated in quick succession, as 
though the gods dethroned in Olympus had 
refuged here and were snow-balling one another 
with snow-clouds. Amid their lumbering ca- 
rousal, Pike said: “Ef we jest had a par o’ com- 
passes, we’d skeet out o’ this muss like monk- 
eys out o’ cocoa-nut-trees. Them ar little things 
is smart as Roth thinks he are. They says noth- 
in’ and pilots right; he’s ’tarnally directin’ and 
alius wrong.” 

Before Tom, in his low-spirited condition, 
could reply, Virginia took from the cover of a 
small book a jewel not larger than a thumb- 
nail, and placed it in Pike’s hand, having in the 
wilderment of all the tempestuous days forgot- 
ten it. Pike held it in his leveled palm and 
its diminutive needle dipped, whirled, trem- 
bled, then stood quivering, pointing due north. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 123 


“ Hooray ! hooray ! ” exclaimed Pike. “ Whar 
did you git it?” 

“Two years ago,” replied Yirginia, “when I 
was starting to the gold-fields— a blue-eyed 
Kentucky lass gave me the Testament with the 
golden compass in its clasp.” 

“And you an’t read it neither,” said Pike; 
“ it ’s bright as the compasses.” 

“ O yes I have, but with washed hands,” re- 
plied Virginia; “read it again and again.” 

“ But wdth washed hands ! ” said Pike ; “ that ’s 
as much as to say to me, ‘ Do n’t you tech the 
book until you run a bushel o’ snow through 
your smoked hands.’ ” 

“Not a word of it,” he said pleasantly; 

Pike took the book, handling it tenderly as 
though he thought it to be a flower from heaven, 
turned a few pages, and exclaimed: “Waal! 
an’t she a critter for beauty? What’s you 
a-sayin’. Mum? ” 

And she was beautiful — that blonde Ken- 
tuckian whose picture he had found between 
the book’s pure pages; and sheltering it from 
the snow-flakes he scanned, by the fire-light, 
her sun-print, with the clear eye of as gentle 
and brave a heart as ever flashed admiration. 

We were all happier after beholding the se- 
rene shadow. She noted not the storm nor 


124 CALIFOUKIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


heeded the gods carousing among the crags; 
but looked quietly, cheerily, trustingly into our 
eyes amid the flutter of the tempest and the 
riftless gloom of the dark night. On her right 
a vase of japonicas, roses, and lilies stood; and 
in her lap a bunch of smaller flowers nestled 
in green leaflets. Her left-hand rested upon 
an open book, her right clasped a locket; and 
from her neck a medallion drooped on her 
bosom. She said nothing, yet there were the 
fresh lips that had spoken words of love, sung 
many pure sentiments, and said, “ Our Father 
who art in heaven.” There were her eyes that 
had showered many smiles, and possibly many 
tears — for even gentle woman weeps this side 
heaven. I never saw it so that I did not feel 
that sin is an ungallant monster. 

That which makes woman weep other than 
tears of joy, or sympathy, or saintly penitence, 
is an unmitigated shape of evil; and he who oc- 
casions it is a wretch, though purpled with pow- 
er and fame and worldly pleasures, and hon- 
ored by her love. She is God’s smile upon the 
path of man. However fallen, hoivever fallen, 
the germ of the angel lies budding in her heart. 
And when robed in knowledge and innocence, 
her presence is a charm that attaches man to 
the heavenly and the true. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 125 


CHAPTER XVI. 

THAT LION WERE A GIRL-LION. 


r was an hour to day-break ere 
we were out of our frosty bed. 
The storm had taken on a darker 
hue; the snow was harder, round- 
er, like white shot. AVe had 
given our faces a snow-bath, and were turning 
one clieek to the fire, then the other, when Pike, 
quietly catching up his rifle, stepped between 
the blaze and some object, trying to catch an 
aim on it. Again and again he tried, while 
we were intently peering into the darkness. 
Presently we beheld the fierce, beautiful glare 
of eyes flashing full upon us a moment like 
fiery stars, then disappearing, now appearing, 
now gone out; and for a minute’s space the 
startling specters went and came, when the 
crack of the rifle started us from almost under 
our scalps. There were a few leaps toward us, 
and within the fire-circle the writhing form of 
the California lioness rolled upon the ice floor, 
and bounded back into the darkness as the 
ready volley of pistols echoed in the jungle. 



126 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


We listened to the irregular bounds of the 
lithe creature speeding into the thick night 
till its crash upon the snow could be heard no 
more. Pike turned to the fire, and said: “ I ’ve 
killed many deer at night by shining their 
eyes; but that brownish varmint shot red coals 
out o’ hers at me too onconstant for me to 
draw a bead atween ’em; so she ’s ’scaped. 
She were arter the donkeys, but Tom’s pretti- 
ness aside of them struck her all aheap, and 
while she were a’mirin’ of him I saluted her. 
She are a gal, you may be sure; for they is 
alius a-pryin’ into things, a-gettin’ into mis- 
chief. They’s been curious ever sence and 
afore one on ’em bit a apple. Ef I were mar- 
ried to one o’ them consarns, I ’d keep her alius 
mighty loving. I ’d let on that I knowed some- 
what that ought n’t to be told nohow to no- 
body, and she’d honey me to crack o’ doom 
a-hopin’ to fuddle it from me. I tell you, boys, 
that lion were a gal; for nothin’ but gal curi- 
osity could ’ave drawed her out her cave in sich 
a storm. They ’s alius bent on goin’ where 
and when they oughtn’t to, I’ve heern tell. 
She ’d better been in her pa’s parler among the 
rocks; or ef she’s married, she’d much better 
been brushin’ her husband’s furry coat and 
whiskers at home. But that ’s the last thing 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 127 


they ever is, satisfied to stay at home. They soon 
curious through home things, an’ must prance 
round in their pretty gear to see e£ all the 
fools is married yet, or to see the sights, an’ 
diskiver the secrets of their own kind. Won- 
der they do n’t run their selves off their insteps 
a-curiousing into things. But one thing are 
sartin, they’s the beautifulest thing in natur. 
That lion’s eyes an’t a carcumstance o’ splen- 
dor aside of theirs. And arter all, they ’s the 
best things in natur. Their voice is music, 
their tech is life. I were wounded once in 
Mexico, and one o’ them black-eyed Mexican 
critters brought me the things I’d axed for, 
but I did n’t have sense enough to know I want- 
ed ’em. She were cream-colored, except each 
cheek were a pink. She had orange-blossoms 
in her black hair, and alius carried a han’ful o’ 
boquays. She ’d be round a dozen on us at a 
time. A kind word, a smile, a bright flower, 
a saft tech, a sasserful o’ just the things we 
needed, an’ away she tripped, like the inner- 
cent she were, to make another squad feel bet- 
ter and think better of her race. Arter that, 
ef I sighted a Mexican in battle, and he were 
at all like her, I’d shoot somebody else; for 
her eyes would ’pear to be thar a-sayin’, ‘ That ’s 
my brother,’ or ‘Tha,t’s my sweet’art;’ and I 


128 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


couldn’t a-sliot ’em e£ old Zack Taylor had 
been thar sayin’, ‘Shoot ’em, Kacket; shoot 
’em ! ’ But that ’s neither here nor thar. That 
lion were a girl-lion, curiousing around in her 
brown furs, a-seein’ what she could see.” 

“Missing your lionly mark. Pike,” said Yir- 
ginia, “makes you piquant. Curiosity, unless 
it pries and is unkind, discounts neither the 
lioness nor one of those black-eyed Mexican 
creatures with hair full of orange-blossoms. 
Polished, reticent, chaste, it is a grace that 
should note and report only charming discov- 
eries.” 

“ It should be the humming-bird,” suggest- 
ed Mack, “observing the sweets and beauties 
of each flower, fluttering soft music, pausing 
on tremulous wing to chirp a song of the elix- 
irs — not the poisons — it uncaps. Here, there, 
everywhere, touching every thing gracefully 
that is sweet and beautiful, this fairy of the 
flower-yard is delightedly welcomed by the old 
and the young. Each is quiet lest the tiny 
grace miss a blossom or chirp a note less ere 
it disappears to wake May-day in other hearts, 
humming none but cheery stories of the sad 
and glad flowers it had shimmered before. 
Voyaging from sweet scene to sweet scene 
only, it darts around or skips over from sight 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 129 


of all that is not fragrant, lest its nice ear 
should catch a harsh sound, or its sensitive eye 
be smitten by a blightful color, or its chaste 
wing be burdened by an ill, or its tlossy bosom 
be ruffled by a rude breath, and its dainty 
tongue give an evil and not a kindly note.’’ 

“When it’s that way,” rejoined Pike, “it 
are good and right. But more ’n like that — I 
mean too of’n— it are like a sarpent trailing 
through the hower-gardens of serciety break- 
ing down and pizining the sweetest blooms. 
And v/omankind an’t got the most on it neither. 
Lestways I ’ve seen a heap o’ men as spouts it, 
as like enough they might be sea-sarpents in 
that line. They ’s to be targets for Indian ar- 
rows at short range, wus nor the lion a-tryin’ 
to make even a iiinercent donkey a prey.” 

9 



130 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

IN A TANGLE OF DREAMS — I MUST SEE THAT 
RIVER OF STONE. 



UIDED by the little compass, we 
turned westward. Depth nor 
height nor tempest veered its 
bright point from its polaric 
mark; for like woman’s heart, 
however it throbbed and vibrated at the tumult, 
as if repulsion to evil inhered, it was defiantly 
true to its invisible love. 

At times the dervishes of the storm tripped 
us from our footing as they leaped by, deco- 
rating our path with white garlands; or the 
snow-queen threw her foamy veil over us in 
folds thick enough to blind us. But at night 
we halted in a group of tough oaks, and bank- 
ing the snow around us four or five feet high, 
we collected logs and limbs for an all-night 
fire. About midnight the roar of the tempest 
ceased, the winds were at rest. The jungle 
was noiseless as Tyre’s forest of marble col- 
umns dreaming in the pale sea, except at long 
intervals a sleet-clad pine unbound his snow- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


131 


crown, and shattered it upon the white forum. 
Ip the mystic calm our senses were keen yet 
soothed. The quivering din of the storm was 
replaced by the silent flow of lethe flooding its 
w^ake, and bathing us in a freshet of soft sen- 
sations. Yet the snow fell, but so quietly we 
knew it not by sound, and in the hush the wil- 
derness, like a nearly drowned Triton escaped 
to shore, breathed sighs of relief, till the stars 
flooded the cleared heavens and the icy earth 
with brightness. Our hearts became as quiet 
as nature’s sleep, amid the softness and beauty 
of the downflow of the star-flood; and we 
stepped without the circle of the fire-light to 
drink in the scene’s witchery. The thousands 
of icicles were like crystal prisms bathing in 
and reflecting pale flames, and the tree-boughs 
and all shrubs drooping with ice momentarily 
imprisoned and loosed from their shimmery 
caresses the sky rays, till every thing seemed 
arrayed in diamonds of changeful glamours. 

I unconsciously moved on till a ridge was 
placed between me and the camp, and was be- 
holding the pale waste, and listening to the 
music the zephyrs, like invisible bell-ringers, 
were ringing from the silvery ice-bells, when 
an unearthly “Halloo-o-oo!” startled me, till I 
rolled pell-mell down the hill, loosening as I 


132 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


went hundreds of shattered icicles, scaling, 
ringing, clattering into the frozen gorge. I 
picked myself up industriously, however, and 
answered the call. A hatless German at onco 
advanced to me. A blanket, through whose 
center he had thrust his bald head, dropped 
in frozen folds about his fat form, and he 
said: “Lose mein v/ay. No stopt; no preat, no 
lager, no schmoke, no nudding, but stirm since 
yester morn; find plenty wulfs, pite preeches- 
leg, pite hat; coldt hedt, foot, potty, all over; 
whew! Peen mining one fool gulch, no golt; 
want lager, start to trade -post, snow thick, 
wind blowt hedt all wrong, no know nudding, 
go all ’pouts, wulfs roat, pite at me up tree, runs 
me pout veer meucht, gits hadt; whew! ” 
Pike’s face twitched with humor as the Ger- 
man repeated his story at the camp; but as he 
was appeasing his hunger with coffee and deer 
and bread. Pike said: “When the troops 
were marchin’ atween Saltillo and Jalapa in 
the Mexican scrimmage, I fell out of ranks 
with the army cramps, that was cholery or 
something as bad, and the ambulance missed 
me. That night as I lay alone expectin’ to 
die with the stars awinkin’ and laughin’ at 
me, a Dutchman lifted my head and put his 
coat under me, and kivered me with his 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 133 


blanket, and poured a mixter down my throat 
that wern’t hard to swallow; an’ next day got 
me to a safe place. He were chubby, an’ his 
head were bound up like Virginy’s, for a Mex- 
ican lance had gashed it, and the hithen 
creeturs were scrougin’ through the country 
in bands. I told him to vcmose, or some o’ the 
Sattans would ketch him ef he staid by me that 
night, and drift a spear into his saft heart. 
He said: ‘ Dat nudding, I stickts der you; I safes 
you, den I runs midt all mein foots.’ ” 

‘^Yah, Eacket,” said the German, who had 
recognized him by the story; “I no runs dat 
nighdt, safes mein foots to run dis nighdt from 
dere wulfs dat pites de preeches veer meucht 
up dere tree.” 

“Well, Heinrich,” Pike replied, “you are 
about the welcomest lost man that ever got to 
a friend’s camp. Ef it wern’t for your coming 
we might believe we was in the valley o’ death 
among the mountains where the silence deepens 
on a mortal till he comes to a dead halt.” 

“Dat one forebode,” answered Heinrich, 
“dat never git into mein hedt. Dis no dedt 
valley. It one flower vorld. De trees, dey 
flowers of ice. Dere twigs, dere pig and schmal 
limbs, pe nudding but white flowers, like pig 
white clumps of flossy feathers. De shrubs 


134 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


pe ice-blossoms dat sing if you touch ’em; and 
de snow pes sky-flowers clipped oft* de clouds, 
singing troe de air coming to de vorld to dress 
it mit white raiments. No dedt valley; one 
flower vorld.” 

“ That,” said Mack, “ is at least Germanic. 
Your tribe not only fight well, but invest every 
thing with music and flowers.” 

“And lager,” added Pike. 

“And literature,” said Tom. 

“And labor,” said Virginia. 

“An’ safes der foots der run from de wulfs, 
wid der preeches-leg pite ofl in de stirm,” 
answered Heinrich, looking at his tattered 
trousers. 

Heinrich was scarcely thawed and warmed 
ere the south-west blast was again soughing 
through the rugged congelations, piling dark 
clouds over us, pushing them against the crags, 
hurling them through the clefts in the mount- 
ains, grinding them together, till in fretted 
helplessness, dissolving in the elemental strife, 
they snowed, as Pike said, “thicker an’ faster 
nor I ever see afore.” 

Virginia, the while, was in a tangle of dreams 
it seemed; for though his eyes were open 
and bright, his lips were sealed, and he replied 
to queries even by signs instead of sounds. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 135 


Pike, trying to shell him out, said: “Virginy 
’minds me to-night o’ a Cherokee human we 
called River Dick. He mined, or rather ’bibed, 
nigh onto a river of rock not fur from Sinora. 
He ’d watched fur a stranger to be a-comin’ by, 
an’ meet him outside o’ the crowd, an’ say sor- 
rowfuller nor death: H-I-are near-lee starved; 
had nuthin’ fur gwine on three days; seeh-how 
jj2y v-voice trembles an’ ban’s shakes; can’t 
scacely talk, s-so weak. L-le-let me hev a 
ha-lialf d-dollar ter git so-some cheese an’ b- 
b-bread afore death c-c-comes, plase.’ ” 

“ In course he got the money, an’ he ’d go 
to whar the bread an’ cheese was, but alius 
’vested the funds in whisky; an’ then be a 
dyin’ the same way ag’in. Virginy is solemner 
nor River Dick a-dyin’ arter grog.” 

Virginia’s dream being too sad or too sweet 
to yield to Pike’s grenade, Mack said: “That 
river of stone is one of the gold-field wonders. 
I was skirring up a picturesque gorge north of 
it when I first beheld it. From the head of 
the gorge to its top is more than a hundred 
feet. Its sides are perpendicular for much of 
its outcrop at that point; its surface level, ex- 
cept conglomerate bowlders, some sealed to the 
surface as if melted to it, lay about like huddles 
of black cattle sleeping on its bosom. It is 


186 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


over three hundred feet broad. It is a river 
of rock without banks, whose stone oairent, 
swirled bluffy up, flows on noiselessly toward 
the great plains that bank the San Joaquin 
tules. On its south side a beautiful little 
plain rolls against it twenty or thirty feet beloAv 
its brink. Its walls and surface and wind- 
ings and scoria suggest that in a fused state 
it had run down the channel of a river, burying 
its waters, or tossing them into another bed, 
by its red floods cooling there. It appears 
that the hills had been pulled away from it by 
the hands of many centuries; or the throb of 
an earthquake had heaved the huge serpentine 
mass up above surroundings, and left it so, to 
attest its awful power, whose throes tumble 
mountains, or. raise them, grind the rolling 
plains and fill the earth with quaking till its 
populations die amid faiiijig groves and col- 
umns.” 

The description was lost upon Tom at least, 
except to suggest to him one thought. For he 
exclaimed: “There lies our pile! A tunnel 
drifted under the foundations of that river ofi 
stone will bring us into the gold deposits ac- 
cumulated by ages; or, likely, uncap to us the 
original smithy where the precious metal was 
first made on this coast; and we shall have to 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 137 


charter the line of steam-ships to convey our 
tons of gold home.” 

His early -day phantasy possessed him with 
wdld visions, and made him a tony again. His 
eyes and voice quivered with delight, and his 
face was wrapped in ecstasy. I should have 
regretted Mack’s matter-of-fact w'ay, had it not 
been plain that Tom was too bewitched by the 
gold -phantom then to consider any thing. 
Mack replied: “Probably a shaft must be sunk 
two thousand feet before the drift under the 
river-bed can be made; and your son, Tommy, 
will be a gi’eat-grandfather before the work 
may be accomplished. I prefer lighter and 
more accessible diggings.” 

“I must see that river of stone,” said Vir- 
ginia; “though amid its description I have 
been a journey upon memory’s river. Just 
before we were graduated a classmate called at 
my room. Nothing could bring a smile to his 
face; and I urged him to let me share his 
trouble. He said: ‘It is my chosen calling for 
life that almost unmans me — the ministry. If 
the leaders in Church affairs were like Chris- 
tianity, loving and large-hearted, the people, 
who follow, would be likewise. But they sadly 
cramp ministers by captiousness, and doled 
salaries, and leaving to them many Church 


138 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


cares they would be happier and more useful 
to share. There are exceptional congregations, 
but unhappily the rule bears hardly upon min- 
isters. In other professions equal attainments 
and toils lead to bountiful and pleasant sur- 
roundingb for families. When my father, who 
was a minister, died, an old friend of his, not 
a member of the Church, proposed to put me 
through college, and give me time to repay his 
advances. He did it so nicely it would have 
been almost insulting to have declined. I re- 
ceived a letter from him to-day inclosing my 
notes receipted, and a sum of money besides, 
stating that he had heard I should preach, and 
it would help me start a library. J can accept 
neither the notes nor the inclosure. For apart 
from other reasons he has had reverses of late, 
and his family is large. But his letter has 
forever settled my purpose to preach. There 
may be many spirits like him; possibly I may 
be useful to some of them, and to others.’ 

‘‘'Two years after that I was visiting in a 
Kentucky village, and on Sabbath, to my joyful 
surprise, my old classmate rose in the pulpit. 
He closed the service by inviting to Church- 
membership. An old farmer was received into 
the Church, and said: ‘Friends, from a child 
we have known this young man who has 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 139 


preached to us to-day. His father went up to 
heaven from amongst us, and when he died I 
determined to follow him as he followed Christ. 
I know I can never be like him; but help me 
to try.’ 

“I got my old classmate to dine with me, 
and when we entered our room he stood with 
his hand upon my shoulder, and said: ‘Jack, 
he that joined the Church to-day is the man 
who helped me through college. I made by 
book-keeping money to pay him all he had 
advanced to me. When I took it to him, he 
said: “Frank, boy, don’t do that. I can’t take 
it. I have always wished to do something 
good; indeed, I think nearly everybody does. 
Don’t you spoil my hopes, lad. Wlien my 
little Carrie, your playmate, died, your father 
soothed her mother’s heart and mine with many 
a kind word and delicate attention. And for the 
love I bear his memory, lad, let me have my 
way in this.” So he placed the money in a 
small Testament, and gave it back to me, and 
said. The book is for your sister.’ ” 

“And,” added Virginia, “she is the blonde 
Kentucky girl I showed you, the other night, 
among the Sierra heights; and the book is that 
Testament, She said when she handed it to 
me: ‘Jack, I only lend you this book; it’s 


140 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


part of my heart; you must bring it back 
safe.’ ” 

^ I wish,” said Tom, Frank were here, and 
Leina, too. She would be delighted to meet 
him; her grandfather was a preacher. 

“Whew!” said Pike, “that beats! What a 
fool, a-wishin’ your wife w^ere in the Sierry 
Mountains in the heart of this f rizzen harricane 
to see Frank that ain’t here, ’cause her grandpa 
were a parson, an’ he the wanderin’ son o’ one.” 

In the instant that he closed his gibe. Pike 
emptied his revolver at objects we had neither 
heard nor seen, but amidst the “oughs” of re- 
treating wolves one of them leaped upward and 
fell over dead in a few feet of the donkeys, and 
Pike added: “Thar’s one o’ them keerless 
prufessors now, Tom. Come help dash him 
in the gulf jest beyant him, or we’ll hev 
more ’n him to kill afore day comes. For the 
rest on ’em will come back to eat him — they 
loves their like.” 

Tom heeded the counsel; and we were all 
soon asleep, regarding neither rush nor lull of 
th6 tempest. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 141 


CHAPTER XVIII, 

TANGLED IN THE CORAL REEFS — ’CEPT SHE ’S 
POSSESST o’ SATTAN. 


we awoke the sky was again 
the morning-star sifted its 
iling rays upon gray morn, 
the sun, clinging to the tops 
le crags, threw millions of 
sparkles upon the frosted jungle, till height 
and abysm appeared to be wrapped in a con- 
flagration of ether. And as he pushed his 
face up full above the snow-crowns, and scat- 
tered his rays directer and warmer upon every 
thing, white vapors, like waves of bridal- veils, 
tangled in the tree-tops and unwinding from 
the icicles, wafted slowly up the iced crags, and 
drooping around them awhile floated on up- 
ward higher and higher into the bosom of the 
blue vault. But we had journeyed only a few 
miles ere the heavens were again overcast with 
hard, pale clouds that moved into position 
between us and the sun, till the canopy above 
and around us seemed to be a vast shroud 




142 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


about US, and again we were whelmed in gusts 
of snow and sleet. 

Pike said: “This are a suddint change. 
Koth, may be we ’ve got into the windy sea o’ 
Jewery that you talks about, specially ef you ’s 
scart and solemn, and are a-walkin’ among its 
white waves in the foamy spray of one of its 
tempests, as you would say.” 

“I like that sea fancy,” said Virginia; “the 
pale billows over us, the outspread sleet, the 
bottom of crumpling corals, the swimming 
snow-flakes drifting between, like polyps, 
wreathing garlands on coral tree and shrub 
and mound in the ether deep ; and like divers 
seeking pearls, we grope in the white depths 
from object to object.” 

“But,” said Mack, “I hope we shall be un- 
like some divers, who with handfuls of pearls 
get tangled in the coral reefs, and with glassy 
open eyes sleep forever in the bed of their 
gems, shrouded in their glitter. The tides 
chant chorals in the reefs, the busy polyps 
sing low, soft strains in the windows of the 
palaces of coral, and the pearls of great price 
are strewn about them; but the pale sleepers 
heed not the weird melodies, the charming 
dazzle, nor any glory.” 

“And,” suggested Both, “there are many. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 143 


though alive, faces still as stone, brain and 
heart stunned massing and summing gold, eyes 
glazy rays of eagerness for more, souls narrowed 
to the circle of its shine, blind to the true light, 
who neglect to buy of Jesus ‘gold tried in the 
fire,’ till death buries them in grasping the 
illusive riches that fail. How are we other 
than fatal blunderers who, for the treasures 
that flood us here, lose the heavenly that lie 
beyond the death-sea?” 

We were grouped together the while in an 
open space, Both between the donkeys leaning 
on one, his right-hand on the other’s sedate 
brow. They seemed to be listening to us, our 
only auditors except the driving snow whose 
flakes appeared to ricochet above and about 
us, in many fantastic curves and twinkles, as if 
to put us in merrier mood. Heinrich seemed 
amazed by Koth’s thought of any other gold 
than the visible, of any other life than the 
earthly; but Pike came to his relief by saying: 
“Tom ’minds me of two parsons I used to 
hear. One we called ‘Blossom;’ and he were 
a thumperer. I ’ve heerd him lots. The 
beautifulest, unarthliest words you ever seed 
popped out’n his lips, an’ busted afore the 
crowd like a armful o’ sky-rockets. He were 
edicated for a lawyer, an’ come nigher makin’ 


144 CALIFOnXIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


white black than arry judge you ever heern. 
He jumped about, run fore an’ aft in the pul- 
pit, turned up his eyes, rolled ’em, popped ’em, 
slung his voice up the mountain-top, an’ d’rectly 
you ’d hear it rumblin’ in the chasm, and won- 
der how it got thar, an’ what it were a doin’ 
down thar ’mong all them arm-throwin’s and 
unhuman gesture an’ figgers. He kivered his 
pint, ef he had any, with a bushel o’ feathers, 
red, blue, black, white, yaller, spotted and 
streaked, so he never teched a targit. 

“The other one we called ‘Blunderbuss.” 
He were a sight. Ef you heern him once, 
you ’d feel unarthly mean from head to heel, 
that ef you did n’t change about you were goin’ 
to Sattan an’ no mistake; and I always noticed 
when he were done my heart were a-throbbin’ 
arter a better life. But when Blossom were 
through sermontizin’, I felt like I were tolerble 
good, a-needin’ nothin’ but wings to make me 
a angel.” 

“Hat vier goot,” said Heinrich, “but ve is 
gone wrong. Drade-pose no dis way. Ve vier 
meucht loss in de stirm.” 

“Can’t help it,” answered Pike; “Yirginny ’s 
got a little gold creetur that dances to the 
north star day and night, a lass give him. We 
are a-follerin’ it for her sake; an’ T never 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 145 


knowed a addle-head man to go far wrong ’cept 
he went contrary to women-kind. Toiler a 
woman-kind, ’cept she’s possesst o’ Sattan, 
which ain’t likely, an’ you ’s sure to find your- 
self all right afore long,” 

“Adam no dinkt dat, when he tare through 
der torns for doing like von vomins say.” 

“Adam,” retorted Pike, “were wrong. He 
ought to have staid more in her company, in- 
stid o’ wanderin’ round, like a Calif orny hus- 
band, leavin’ her to the marcy o’ Sattan. Ef 
he ’d staid at home, she ’d a been all right 
mebbe, an’ we mought a been in the garden of 
Eden to-day instid of in this whizzy snow an’ 
icy ’glommerations, as Tom calls the frizzen 
things.” 

Tom winced a little, for he had been a long 
time from his wife, and disliked the fragment- 
ary style in which Pike quoted him. So he 
said: “I said ‘icy conglommerations;’ and 
Leina is as safe and happy where she is as if 
I were there too.” 

“Yes,” he rejoined; “an’ more so. Ef she 
wern’t better nor a goddess, you ’d ’ave gone 
below to warm ’tarnally afore now. She are 
the ’sprisenest creetur I ever see, only I never 
seen her yet, to find any good or pritty about 
you to ’maze her so. I know’d it were some 
10 


14(5 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


inhuman word stretchin’ to sundown, without 
you wastin’ the day in callin’ it over. Ef Blos- 
som ever gits that word, he ’ll ’glommerate the 
folks with it till they ’s deef enough not to hear 
a arthquake. Why didn’t you say ‘frizzen 
things,’ then everybody would onderstand 
you?” 

Tom moved on through the blasts without 
further parley; and about twilight next day 
we stretched a Norwegian tent, we had pro- 
cured from a flitting company, amidst beautiful 
live-oaks on a point that a few feet from us 
dipped its granite face in the Stanislaus Biver, 
a few miles above Knight’s Ferry. 

The long, tortuous descent from the peaks 
and abysses of massy congelations had con- 
ducted us into a mild climate. The clouds 
broke in rain, or most of the feathery snow- 
flakes, softening in the warmth of their fan- 
tastic mid-air waltz, rapidly dreamed, them- 
selves away as they swooned upon the sward. 
And contenting ourselves with mines border- 
ing the valleys, though yielding but a few 
dollars a day, we gathered a few books and 
many newspapers about us, and forgot, in their 
light and peace, the dangers we had escaped. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 147 


CHAPTER XIX. 


THE GLEAMING BLADE OF HIS NAKED BOWIE. 



EINBICH, after a few weeks, de- 
I parted for Stockton — or to get 
nearer an unfailing supply of 
lager, rattier; and the restful 


scenes of the foot-hills becoming 


tame to us, Tom and Mack, and myself, went 
farther into the mountains prospecting. 

The third night out we attended a mock 
temperance meeting. Perhaps two hundred 
men, belted with weapons and adorned with 
beards ten or twelve inches long, graced the 
occasion. The platform consisted of empty 
kegs, heads up. There were no seats; all stood. 
Tlie president was a cool old sailor. A Dutch- 
man, a Frenchman, a Michigander, and an 
Irishman, had spoken, extolling every drink 
except water amidst an uproar of applause. 

When the fifth speaker ascended the kegs he 
was greeted with wildest huzzas; bottles peeped 
from his pockets, and his voice, as he acknowl- 
edged the honor, was akin to the tremolo key 
of an organ out of tune. He emptied a bottle 


148 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


at a draught, while the crowd gathered closer 
about him, and said: “Gentlemen and ladies.” 

“Hello, Kaintuck!” yelled an Irishman, 
“tharre’s not one o’ the last sax herre.” 

“Well,” he answered, “there ought to be 
in this dacent company, surely.” 

“Say ladies and gentlemen, then. Commo- 
dore!” exclaimed many voices. 

He uncorked his second bottle and took a 
long drink. The fluid gurgled, gurgled down 
his throat. All eagerly watched him till, as 
the bottle tilted to a perpendicular between 
his teeth, some cried out: “He ’s good as dead, 
boys! That’s too much for two sober men.” 

“Who says ‘good as dead?’” he asked, 
dropping the bottle at his feet. “Is it intem- 
perance that destroys? When did that become 
an article of faith with you? It is temperance 
that palsies the nerves, loosens the joints, un- 
strings the muscles, gives the body a zigzag 
motion, numbs the brain, deadens the kindlier 
feelings of the heart, and w^akes up fiends 
in it. 

“It is temperance that quarrels with the 
best friend, spends all its store in rioting, feeds 
on hunger, clothes in rags, beats woman, breaks 
her loving heart, frightens children and makes 
them weep when God intended their little faces 



CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 149 


should be brave as innocencej and smile like 
cherubim. 

“It is temperance that poisons the blood, 
bloats the form, gives wounds and bruises 
without cause, reddens the eye and blears its 
vision; fouls the air with profanity, mocks 
sacred things, guillotines honor, provokes dis- 
cord, stirs to murder, wrecks energy, stifles in- 
dependence, and disgraces a State by adding 
to its prison registry a long list of dishonored 
names. 

“It is temperance that taxes the sober for 
the drunken, the pure and peaceable for the 
fiendish, and turns grain needed for the hun- 
gry into liquor that laughs at calamity and 
sows sorrows. It transmutes wisdom into in- 
sanity, and stripping the soul of all that’s 
purest and best in the casket of immortality, 
leaves it mean, and virtueless, and fitted for 
perdition. It twines gray hair with woes, fills 
sweet old mother’s heart with floods of desolate 
grief; and opens an early grave, a grave of 
shame, a pauper’s grave, a grave of crime, a 
grave over which no sigh that the buried one 
is gone ever sheds its pathetic murmur.” 

During his speech the crowd had become 
still as a desert, and from the moment that he 
dropped his bottle his voice was musical and 


160 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


clear. Each phrase was articulate irony whose 
presence, like electricity, was felt by his audit- 
ors. But if they strove at all to shake off its 
spell, they utterly failed, till the speaker stood 
mute, pale, watching a boy just in the teens 
pressing to the platform. There was a deathly 
pallor on the lad’s face as he stepped to his 
side, and the voice was inimitably tender as 
he said: “Father, please go to the tent.” 
“Certainly, my boy; yes, at once.” 

The boy whirled upon his heel, facing the 
wild crowd, and said: “You are fiends!” 

I saw Tom move close to him ; but had no 
time to think. Several were already yelling, 
“ Knock that boy on the head! down with him ! ” 
He did not quail, but said: “I say it again. 
You are fiends! You are making mockery of 
my good father. You have led him to drink 
again, and brought him to this accursed com- 
pany to make sport, by his eloquence, for your 
sottish souls.” 

Angry voices railed at him again, and I saw 
the old man fingering his bowie. A half dozen 
irritated men were approaching him, when a 
clear voice rang across the cursing throng: 
“ The boy shall speak ! Touch him who dares ! ” 
I knew the voice at its first note for Tom’s, 
but its silvery defiance had scarcely split the 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 151 


air before blows, like the thuds of the catapult, 
were falliug, that made the heart sicken and 
rage. Presently the thoughtful men present 
had secured a truce, but not before Eoth and 
Mack who had sprung to his side had felled 
several of the chief assailants. 

The president, when the truce obtained, was 
sitting precisely as he was when the first blow 
was struck; but the old man, whose speech had 
been interrupted, was standing upon the first 
row of kegs with his left arm tightened round 
the boy, a little in advance; and the gleaming 
blade of his naked bowie glittered in his steady 
right-hand. No eye that beheld him then but 
knew that to touch that boy was death; and 
the reckless revelers, as the posture caught 
their glance, involuntarily cheered, till the old 
Kentuckian, becoming conscious of the heroic 
tableau he was presenting, placed the boy on a 
cask and sat down by him. 

The first word, after the fight was checked, 
was from Tom, of course. I expected him to be 
shot every moment. He had planted himself 
in the very tracks he stood in when the first 
blow w^as struck, and, exactly in the same key 
as before, said: “The boy shall speak!” 

“No,”^said the old man, jumping to his 
feet, “he has said enough. And, friends, I 


152 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


regret to have occasioned any thing unpleasant. 
Many of you know how ruinous to me intem- 
perance has been. I am sober, have not tasted 
liquor in five months; hope never to again. 
The bottles you saw me use held only lemon- 
ade. My intention was to have made you a 
temperance speech in my way, when my boy’s 
face amazed me coming through the crowd; 
and knowing how he was suffering because, 
like you, he thought me again drinking, I lost 
my self-poise. Your president knew my plan, 
and approved it. Let me be done with it, by 
expressing the wish that you will all be friends, 
and join with me in exiling your palates from 
w^hisky forever.” 

As he ceased, the old sailor rapped with his 
big jack-knife on a cask, and said: “Round to 
thar; round to, my hearties! Come to order. 
If you’ll say intemperance whar Commodore 
Kaintuck said temperance you ’ll have his 
spache as he mint it. You ’re bound to have your 
fun. But as cap’n of this ship, I say throw 
o’erboard such lumber as making sport of a 
good thing, and quit grog, or you will go down, 
under full sail, to blue blazes. I declar this 
meetin’ ’jarned Over to, to, to judgment-day.” 

On our return to camp Roth discovered that 
he had swallowed a tooth, and maintained that 


CALIFOliNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 153 


my skull had knocked it out, trying to get from 
the fighting circle. Professing to be a boxing 
expert, he disliked to own to a square blow 
from an antagonist; but the only blow he could 
give was one at a venture, and his skill in 
fencing was to receive a blow on the spot it 
was aimed at. 

Finding a rich gulch among the taller foot- 
hills, we located claims; and Both and the 
brown donkey went to pilot the gray donkey 
and Pike and Virginia to the placer. 



154 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


CHAPTER XX. 

O IT WAS A SWEET, PURE FACE! — EVERY THING 
BUT LIFE, THE DANCE OF LIFE. 



UR new camp was in a sequestered 
portion of the jungle. The hills 
about us, however, were generally 
less than five hundred feet above 
us, and were inlaid and underlaid 
by gray rocks whose brows, when long exposed, 
had become dark and rent and rugged. The 
placer broke away from the abrupt base of 
one of the lower hills, and was divided in its 
length by a branch whose supplies of water, 
when the winter rains had ceased, we increased 
by uncapping several springs and turning their 
streams to that of the placer. The fall in the 
water channel was comparatively great, and, 
together with the narrowness of the hill- 
pent mine, made our labor the less worrying; 
and the gravel “panned out” richly, and the 
bed-rock richer. So we were contented to 
cheerfully “pitch in;” and as the fine days of 
approaching spring flooded us with sunshine, 
to break the weeping spells of dying wdnter. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 155 


we were fairly rid of the gloom the hard win- 
ter had imparted to us. 

In those days a fine suit of clothes was 
scarcely ever seen in the mines. We were 
surprised by the appearance of one such, at 
our tent door one evening, piloted by a miner 
we had met on the Stanislaus. But when we 
beheld the joyful greeting with which Kothleit 
welcomed its wearer, we were satisfied to have 
it about. He was an old law friend of Eoth’s, 
from New York, called to California in the 
interest of some large old Mexican land 
grants; and wishing to see the mines, before 
returning east, was pushing south to the Fre- 
mont Claim, which was then exciting some stir. 
Chancing to hear of Both through the miner, 
whom he had met in the stage, he had turned 
aside to greet him. 

He spent two or three days with us; renewed 
his boyhood rifle-practice by some successful 
shots at deer that were now gliding back to the 
mountains from the valleys; and blistered his 
hands mining for nuggets, to show to friends 
at home as having been dug by himself from 
the gold-fields. He was a genial visitor, and 
imparted to us a wishfulness for the soft garbs, 
the nice conventionals, the civilized surround- 
ings of the Atlantic Coast; but this died out in 


156 CJLIFOMNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


a few days, and we and the gold-phantom were 
cousinly as ever. Tom staged it with him to 
the head of the Mariposas, and kept us awake 
many hours, the night he got back to the tent, 
by his restlessness and narratives, bringing the 
light of the snow-crags about us again. He said : 

“ Snow-man was a passenger with me in the 
journey back to the Stanislaus crossing, bound 
for Jamaica, his home. He has been fairly 
successful, and will sail from San Francisco 
in two or three days. The story he told 
us at Tempest Camp was not all the truth; 
miner-like, he concealed the golden reason of 
his being lost. He and the Mexican had mined 
together. Afterward, in a fandango, he had 
struck aside a pistol from his heart, not an in- 
stant too soon; for the bullet plowed under 
his skin, and fired his clothes. He had shown 
real gratitude; and, after a separation of 
months, had arranged, by letter, to meet him 
at a trading-post ten miles ’west of Tempest 
Camp, to direct him to a rich gulch. Snow-man 
had purposely turned from the hunting party, 
but losing his way, had failed to meet him till 
they unexpectedly met at our camp. The 
Mexican observed when I withdrew from the 
tent in the storm, and awoke him; and when 
they were without the tent, induced him to 


CALIFOBNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 157 


leave at once, to return early in the morning. 
The plea was that he knew the jungle so well 
that he could thread it safely, and that his 
brother awaited him in camp a mile or two 
away, to start with him back to Sonora, Mexico, 
whence they had come, and was fearfully un- 
easy, as he was a day or two behind time. As 
they groped their way, he detailed to him how 
to find and know the gulch, which was fifty 
miles off. They slept at a brush tent, under a 
cliff with another Mexican ; but when he awoke 
next morning he was alone, and not a trace of 
the Mexicans to indicate the direction they had 
taken. In seeking to find us, he luckily wan- 
dered toward the valley, and so escaped the 
fearful experiences that had tortured us. He 
had mined the gulch that paid largely. 

“At the foot of a beautiful mountain we left 
the stage, with other passengers, to walk on by 
a trail, while it made a circuit to avoid some 
rough ravines. The day was charming; the 
sleepy sunshine threw a soft trance upon every 
thing. The mahogany-hued manganites, the 
low-branched oaks, the winding trail, the old 
gray great rocks, the pebbly gulches, the 
mountains with their shadowy labyrinths, the 
songful birds, the plumy flowers resting their 
cheeks upon the ether, or dallying with the 


158 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


grass, were suggestive of peace and life. But 
a few steps farther brought us in the shadow of 
an oak upon whose boughs two human forms 
hung. They were Mexicans, and we stepped 
beneath the tree to examine the dead sons of 
an evil destiny. 

“As they turned to and from each other in 
the noiseless waltz of death, in mid-air, one 
swung lower than the other. He was poorly 
clad, of graceful build, and appeared to be a 
man of toil. His head, as he swung to and fro 
solemnly, then spun round and round slowly, 
as the zephyrs played with his hair, inclined a 
little to one side and drooped. A soft expres- 
sion ineffably sad, resigned, forgiving, mourn- 
ing in itself in utter helpless friendlessness, 
was upon his dusky countenance, and on his 
placid brow innocency was so plainly writ in 
death’s strange letters that we marveled why 
He, without whom not a sparrow dies, had 
yielded him to so sorrowful a fate. O it was a 
sweet, pure face, looking as though innocence, 
in unpitied heart-break, had painted herself 
there, and died! 

“ The other was neatly dressed. A miner’s 
shirt of green flannel, jacket-like; black cassi- 
mere trousers, clasped round his waist by a 
bright leathern girdle; a flaunty necktie, and 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 159 


fine, close-fitting boots, all new, were his cos- 
tume. His head was erect; his face bloated as 
from recent debauch, was contorted with stark 
horror, while in every lineament were coiled 
masses of snakish hate and guilt. His brow was 
corrugated, and a hideous scowl upon it seemed 
to be communing with many murders. His dead 
eyes were wide open, fixed in dread gaze, as if 
on appalling specters flitting with his bodeful 
soul. No one who looked upon him but felt 
that his, though a stern, was a just doom. 

“It seemed to me that I had seen him before, 
and as we moved on to meet the coach, memory 
was busied with many faces, when Snow-man 
said: ‘That’s the Mexican you charged with 
murder the night of the storm in the mount- 
ains; the fiendish-looking one back yonder, 
hanging highest. I have never seen nor heard 
of him since then until now. What a horrible 
face! and yet he had been grateful to me.’ ” 

“And assassinous to me,” said Virginia, in- 
terrupting the narrative. 

“We learned at the next stage-stand,” con- 
tinued Tom, “ that they had been lynched the 
night before, as one was a notorious robber and 
murderer, and the other had interfered to save 
him, and was treated as his accomplice. Judge 
Lynch, specially when in a hurry, is sure to 


160 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


blunder till at his illegal hands sometimes the 
comparativly guiltless suffer the doom of the 
guiltiest.” 

“In a soul,” said Mack, “close together imps 
and angels abide. They strive with each other, 
and, the soul’s nature being like the imps, these 
hold it until one mightier than imps and angels 
comes — the Christ; then the imps must go, or 
the soul. If it persist for the imps, it is loosed 
by the Great King to mate with them only, and 
together they hurry to the fearful doom of sin. 
If the Mexican had heeded that angel. Grati- 
tude, till its pure calls had gathered to him 
penitence, faith, hope, love, his life would have 
been a thing so useful and noble that though 
his death had been by violence, by the sins of 
others, it would have been peaceful to him. 
But instead, his life was corrupted more and 
more as he harbored added imps, and none can 
ever know here the evil that he did. His poor 
friend’s death, as his own, evidently was caused 
by his life of crime. What a curse is a wicked 
life!” 

“And how disastrous often,” said Virginia, 
“one evil life is to another! and quickly comes 

the disaster! I knew , in the : 

mines, a reticent, courteous young man. Those 
who knew him in his tropic home, ere ho 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 161 


touclied this shore that infatuates so many 
with the vices of gaming and drink, tell many 
pleasant things of him. In a dance-house, 
over a mountain whose blue top and green 
sides witch the eye, lie chanced to overhear a 
curse a Mexican breathed against Americans. 
Pausing in the dance, he resented it by a slap 
in the face; but meeting no resistance, lie 
turned away, and again was whirling in the 
frantic pleasure of the waltz. The flush upon 
his cheek was rosy with life, the eye glowy 
with delight; and care had fled to to-morrow 
from the thrill of music and motion. The 
magnetism of the sensual revel suffused him 
body and soul with its sensuous spell, till 
every thing but life, the dance of life, was a 
whisk of nothingness to him. The crack of a 
pistol at the door, a thud to the floor of his 
form from the whisking circle, a gush of blood 
from the white bosom, a convulsive shudder, a 
gurgling gasp, and life was gone — his eyes 
stretched after his ghost gliding away from the 
quivering company. A minute before the in- 
sulted Mexican had crouched, from the scene 
of light and life, into the darkness, and sent 
death to take his place within, whilst he fled 
deeper into the mountains. Several days 
passed; but the friends of the slain man were 
11 


162 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


busy. One evening he watched the red sun 
burying himself in the distant sea of valleys, 
and turning down the shrubby height was pen- 
etrating to a tall pine whose brow glowed with 
the purple of sundown painting cliffs and 
rocks and thicket and firmament. Every 
object seemed breathless with joy. The red 
manganites, robed in silvery foliage rubied 
with sky glints, were motionless with excess of 
peace; the birds were at rest upon the golden 
leaf-cups, viewing the blush of bush and air 
ere fluttering to sleep for the night; and the 
wild deer paused as they crept from tlieir 
coverts, marveling at the red flush suffusing 
every thing. He looked sad, as though death 
spoke to him from the crimson wave of clouds 
in which the sun had buried himself; and as 
he edged the chasm to near the pine, to obtain 
tidings and provisions from his friends, he 
halted and peered about, glided on, paused, 
watching in the soft twilight like a startled 
panther, fearing, about to go back, pondered, 
then on again a few hesitating steps, and list- 
ened alert, as if foreboding ill. Blue puffs 
whiffed up in the ether, a volley of fire-arms 
crashed among the shrubs, its black smoke like 
veils of crape floated upon the ruby thicket, a 
husky groan from a, dusky form Avrithing in 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


163 


blood upon the sward ; a few men rose up from 
among the rocks, painted by the ghost of the 
buried sun as they grouped where the smoking 
blood lay curdling, and the dead man’s stare 
and ashy face told them how true their aim 
had been. So crimes followed crime. And 
evermore it is so until He who ‘ stopped dying 
to save a soul’ takes sin away.” 



164 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

DRESS AN ISTHMUS MONKEY. 


tIE moonless night sprinkled with 
stars was dozing upon the lone 
mountains, and we caught the 
silence of the solitude as we 
thought of Tom’s narrative. Nor 
did our improvised stone lounges seem hard to 
us, for we had just read “letters from home” 
that he had brought from the post; and were 
languidly puffing some rare Havanas, dream- 
ing dreams and seeing visions of the persons 
and objects in our dear old home across the 
continent. 

However, Mack presently broke up our rev- 
erie by reading to us the following letters from 

Clay S and Wyche L , who had mined 

with him soon after he came to California. 
They had gone back home, but reminded Mack 
of their miner-life by an occasional letter. 
Clay’s was as follows: 

“ , Kentucky, 13 , — . 

^‘Dear Mach: I have been married ever since 
I got back from the gold-fields, nine months 




CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 165 


and twenty-seven days, about. You have seen 
Minnie’s picture, so I need not describe her to 
you, only she has been growing in beauty and 
goodness to me, from our marriage-eve. This 
morning she is very, very beautiful. 

“ The baby is two v/eeks and five days old, 
and now sleeps upon her arm under a rainbow 
of smiles reflected from lier face. And, Mack, 
there is no mistake about it, the baby is incom- 
parably pretty and smart. From present in- 
dications, we think he is destined to exceed 
‘Harry of the West’ himself, for whom I am 
named, in stateliness of form, wisdom, sprightly 
wit, and eloquence. Were you to see him as he 
lies in ribbons and rutiles, looking about at 
things, I know you would agree to what I say. 
He had a glorious red color the first few days 
of his life. We were very much delighted, 
Minnie and I. For we expected he would 
grow up real rosy, graceful, and plump, in- 
stead of bony, impish-looking, like other boys. 
But after two or three days he began to whiten 
in spots, which made us very uneasy; for we 
feared very much he was taking the lepros}^, 
which you know whitens one wonderfully. 

“ Minnie discovered it first, and was near go- 
ing distracted abo ut it at once. F or her mother’s 
favorite darky, old Aunt Hetty, as kind a nurse 


166 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


as ever stole sugar for the children, or danced 
at a Christmas frolic, has been turning white 
in splotches the last twenty years ; and Minnie 
said she knew the baby would look just that 
way when he was a man — a streak of white and 
a streak of red, like old Hetty, a streak of 
white and a streak of black. 

“We sent for the doctor, who told us when 
he came that it was nothing much, yet not 
entirely usual; but that the child was so un- 
common anyhow we might expect unusual 
things of him; to watch closely, and if he 
whitened regularly, only here and there a tinge 
of pink, it was all right. 

“ He left a small vial of some colorless fluid, 
tasteless unless it tasted like water, with direc- 
tions to give ten drops of it to the baby every 
flve hours, when awake, till the sixth day, and 
by that time he would be a soft, natural, creamy 
white. And it was so. And I advise you, if 
you ever have a child that ’s very red for a few 

days after birth, to send for Dr. , or one 

of his pupils, at once. AVe like the fair skin 
of the baby better, I believe, than we did its 
color — red — before we sent for the doctor, 
thanks to him. 

“Minnie’s mother says that the whitening 
was all natural, that Minnie herself was the 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 167 


reddest thing alive when only one or two days 
old. But she ’s a great talker any way. 

^‘His head, the baby’s, is round, except it 
may bulge somewhat behind, and his hair is 
already nearly black. We are glad that’s so; 
for we talked it over, and agreed that we never, 
could stand it if he were to have a white head. 
The hair is soft as floss of silk. Short neck, 
long eyelashes, blue, flashy eyes, and about 
them, too, is a most deep, profound look that 
denotes genius. The doctor seems to agree 
with us in that; especially my wife’s mother 
and mine do. His nose is a fac-simile Grecian 
nose; I wish you could see it. His cheeks are 
plump, a little red yet; and his ears are the 
most symmetrical I ever beheld. His mouth 
is a rare grace; it puckers, a little I mean, and 
large with thick lips — I do not mean much so, 
just enough so to resemble the grand ‘Harry.’ 
His chin curves, indicatiye of masculinity, and 
is dimpled. His arms and legs are exquisite 
models; so Minnie and I think, and are sus- 
tained in the opinion by Minnie’s old college 
mates — so she tells me; they have been very 
kind in calling to see him. 

‘' We thought yesterday he had a tooth com- 
ing through ; but the doctor said he thought not, 
as children were seldom so smart as to cut 


168 CJLIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


teeth under three months old; and as our boy 
is not three weeks old, it’s possible that we 
are mistaken. His hands and feet are small, 
the sign of bJood. Indeed, Mack, he’s the 
handsomest, most perfect child, I ever heard 
of. Minnie says that all the ladies who have 
called, and they are many, say that he is the 
prettiest, cunningest — they mean intelligent 
— and finest - looking child they ever saw. 
We are greatly troubled about naming him. 
I prefer Washington Greene Gates, after the 
three most distinguished generals of the Eev- 
olutionary War. Minnie inclines to ^sop 
Cicero; but she ’s afraid the impish boys, when 
he goes to school, will call him Sis, or Sop; 
and she never could stand that. And she says 
that Aunt Clink says that if she consents to the 
name I have chosen, the boys will call him 
nothing but Greene Gates. 

“ Uncle Tobe says that we are the two biggest 
fools in America, and he ’ll bet his blue-grass 
farm against a blue paper of pins that the ' 
child will be a bigger fool than both of us 
put together. But he’s an old fossil, so you 
need n’t believe what he says about the baby. 

“I have had to stop writing to consult about 
the boy’s name. We have agreed to name him 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 169 


Tobias De Wittle, after Uncle Tobe, who is 
clever as they make ’em even in Kentucky. 
He said this morning that we were exactly 
right — that there never was such another baby 
in the world as ours, who has certai»^ly grown 
nearly an inch since yesterday.” 

This letter is scarcely in accord v;ith the ex- 
tract below from a letter of his Cousin Wyche. 
And not being equal to view the difference in 
“ a dry light,” what could we do but leave it 
where we found it? Wyche wrote: 

“I shall be in California again in two 
months. Called the other day to see Clay. 
His wife is rarely beautiful. How she ever 
fancied Clay is an enigma; perhaps amiability, 
courtesy, and business habits make a man, 
however ruggedly featured, handsome in wom- 
an’s estimate. They have a boy baby now of 
whom they are very proud. Clay gave me a 
voluble account of his perfections, before 
taking me to the crib to see him. Of course I 
could say nothing to discount a grace, however 
imaginary, from the little fellow. It takes 
something to set me back, you know; but I met 
something in that child. Mack, he ’s the ugli- 
est thing in mortal shape. I was amazed at 
the sight. His head is long and one-sided; 
hair, tow-colored; ears, purple and large like a 


170 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


valley rabbit’s; frog-eyed; liis nose, like a flat 
piece of fresh beef dumped carelessly just 
over his mouth in which he was cramming both 
hands; and he screwed his face till I drew 
back, fearing he was about to turn outside in. 
If you would dress an Isthmus monkey in a 
slim ruffle-shirt, wrap it up in white flannel 
rimmed with pink ribbon, and wash its face in 
chalk and red paint mixed, and mash its foot 
till its face was set to a hundred screeches, you 
would have as fair a picture of Clay’s baby as 
can be given. But I believe babies are all 
alike, only this one is more like the ugly of all 
the rest.” 

By the time the reading was finished Pike 
had a midnight stew of canned oysters ready, 
and said: “Virginny, pass them ar iceters to 
Clay’s baby.” 

Virginia thought a moment, then plumped 
the stew-pan down by Tom, who quietly emptied 
about half the oysters into his prospecting pan, 
and ate them, filing no disclaimer to his baby- 
hood. 

“Waal,” drawled Pike, “your handsome par 
will be arter you d’rectly with a tumbler full 
o’ paregoric. You are bound to be collict.” 

But he was n’t. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 171 


CHAPTER XXir- 

OUT OF WHICH CAME TO US SOKEOWFUL 
WHISPEES. 


HE banks of the mine grew taller 
and more rugged with jutting 
rocks, as we pushed the pit nearer 
■ the base of the hill. And as the 
warmth of April played with the 
snow that yet capped the highest hills about 
us, the days were balmy, though fresh and 
cool; while the nights were so cold that we 
kept good fires, in whose winking light we told 
stories of the past, or interchanged thoughts. 
As he leaned against the tent-pole, propped 
upon his elbow, musing. Pike said: “When I 
were wounded in Mexico, and left by the doc- 
tors to die afore mornin’, a little pale-face man, 
that looked like a corpse, crawled off his pallet 
to me, and nursed me all night. Once, when 
the spasms wrung me so I thought I was a- 
goin’, he wiped the death-sweat from my face 
Avith the nicest part o’ his shirt-sleeve, and put 
his hand upon my heart. A minute arterwards 
I missed him, and looked about for him best I 



172 CALIFORNTA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


could, for I shuddered to die by myselL 1 saw 
him crawlin’ away fast as he could out o’ the 
dingy room, but d’rectly he were back ag’in 
with a red-face surgeon I never see afore. He 
said to me: ‘ Comrade, never give up till it’s all 
over. This doctor will watch with me, and if 
there ’s a chance you ’ll be all right yet.’ He 
drug his pallet close to mine, and they got me 
and mine onto it gently as they could, so I 
could die safter. But they kept tryin’ to better 
me, ontil in a day or two I were improvin’, and 
in a month were ready for to march. I used 
to go to my old pallet-place, and hobble along 
the track o’ blood that flowed from liis own 
wound, as he crawled arter the doctor to come 
help him revive me, and wonder whar he were. 
The watchers had told me that he were removed 
one night while I were out o’ my head, and he 
were delirious, too, and they had to force him 
away; and that’s all I could larn about him. 
Arter that, in the battle o’ Molino del Bey, I 
saw a soldier cheering a company that were 
waverin’. He said, ‘Never give up till it’s 
all over;’ and a shot cut him down afore you 
could say huzza. But I knowed him by them 
words. When the order come to move position, 
I sprung over the ditch frontp^rds into the corn 
whar he were a-lyin’ dead-like, and bore him 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 173 


along with us. The captain told me to carry 
him out o’ danger, and come back at double- 
quick. He groaned a time or two, as I were 
a-toatin’ of him, so I knowed he wern’t quite 
dead; and when I laid him down among t’others 
where the doctors was a-cuttin’ of ’em wus, 
gougin’ for the bullets in ’em, I gave him some 
water and bathed him off. When he come to, 
I said: ‘An’ yer don’t know me?’ ‘Ko,’ he 
said, ‘but I will; my head ain’t just right yet.’ 
‘Yes,’ said I, ‘but yer heart will do to bet on 
any time. Do n’t you mind in Jalapa a-crawlin’ 
arter a doctor one night, fur a fursaken fellow 
gin up to die, and bleedin’, as you crawled, 
puddles of blood from your own wounds?’ 
‘Ah!’ he answered, ‘it’s Jim; glad you got 
well. I’m sick, sick;’ and he fainted away 
suddint ag’in. 

“It were worth while to be thar, to see the 
glitter o’ joy on his filmy eye when he called 
me Jim; but he were mistaken. I told him, 
arter he got ’most well, my name wern’t Jim, 
but Racket; for I knowed some secret were on 
his heart that warmed it wrongly to me. 
‘Well,’ he said, ‘you are just like Jim Knight 
who dragged me from under the Mexican spears 
after we were both wounded, when (^ol. Clay 
was killed, and brought me safe off the field.’ 


174 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


But lie never told me lie got wounded under them 
lances a-savin’ Jim’s life, but 1 knowed it, for 
Jim were my twin brother, and when he told 
me about it, he said: ‘And Backet, e£ ye ever 

can get a chance to do Sam M a good turn, 

lad, put him through heart-like; bless him. 
Backet, kinder like mother would bless him.’ 
And Jim were in arnest about then, for his 
tender, true hand were on my shoulder, and a 
tear were in his eye when he said it. Anyhow 
I double-quicked round Sam instid o’ back, for 
the battle were won afore we got out o’ range; 
and he were fightin’ a battle now all alone with 
death, and I tried to make one with Sam ag’in 
death; and he pulled through; and I toated 
him out o’ the hospital one day and laid him 
down on some fresh fodder under a tree. He 
were crazy enough for awhile, but he slept 
mighty deeply presently, and woke up while I 
were a-lookin right into his face; and he 
smiled, and said, ‘Jim.’ ‘No,’ said I; ‘Backet 
for Jim.’ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘it’s both.’ ‘Yes,’ 
said I, ‘ for me and Jim is one for such a fellow 

as Sam M , forever. Now sleep ag’in, and 

git well to rescue some more o’ your comrades. 
“ Never give up till it ’s all over.” I ’m a-goin’ 
to be right by you, Sam; sleep — sleep.’ And 
be did, and got well at last. Marssy, boys, to 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 175 


he clever were or’nary with that pale scrap of 
a man. He ’d give his blood for a comrade 
any day.” 

Here Pike’s eye wandered over a broadcloth 
suit athwart the projecting end of the rib-x)ole 
of the tent above him, whither Tom had tossed 
it the week before, when he got back from his 
Mariposa trip. The fragrant smoke of our Ha- 
vanas, gray streaked with thin blue, hugged 
it coquettishly ere twirling higher in the air 
that seemed to stretch its laughing eyes upon 
it, too; and he said: “Tom, you brought a 
armful o’ newspapers, an’ five boxes o’ cigars, 
and that cloth suit up thar you is so keerful 
of, when you come back from Mariposa. You 
are bound to be rich a-goin’ on in that style. 
The Gov’ment ought to ’pint you univarsal 
spendthrift, to show now big a blossom in that 
line Ameriky kin grow.” 

Tom ground the end of his cigar between his 
teeth, and hurried up two or three puffs of 
smoke, but said nothing. He had often in- 
sisted, in his series of camp-fire lectures, that 
neither of us knew aught of economy but him- 
self; and that fine suit, that we had already 
made a towel of on occasions, gave Pike a 
chance to retaliate, too good to let slip ; and he 
continued: “You need them ar sort o’ clothes. 


176 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


puddling in the mud and water waist deep 
every day mining, an’ you hangs ’em thar to 
-show ‘ the fitness in things,’ as you say.” 

Tom fiipped the spire of ashes off his cigar, 
and replied: “I felt shabby in miner’s garb 
with my New York friend, and a clever gentle- 
man told me he was selling off at cost, in Mar- 
ijjosa, and let me have the suit for eighty dol- 
lars — it was priced at a hundred.” 

“Yes,” said Pike, “that clever gentleman 
were marciful to you; he made you pay only 
thirty dollars more ’n anybody else.” 

“Nearer forty,” he answered, owning he had 
been overreached ere he thought, “as I dis- 
covered on pricing suits for Snow-man at an- 
other store. But I ’ll trade with him no more.” 

“No,” said Pike, “but you will with some 
other clever gentleman till you are no more, or 
your gold ’s all gone, for all your lecturs to the 
balance on us about prudence, and ’conomy, 
as you call being stingy.” 

Pike’s case against him was too clear for 
Tom to rally, and he good-humoredly beat a 
retreat into the realms of reverie; and the camp 
was still as the snow yet crowning a mountain, 
that overtopped the taller hills or spurs just 
about us, and appeared in the sky-shine like a 
white cloud sleeping upon a long, high bed of 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 177 


ebony. Pike said: “Boys, that mountain 
’minds me of a monster giant dead, under a 
shroud too narrow to kiver him round good. 
I ’ve been reading Tom’s Bible. Somebody ’s 
marked a varse which reads, ‘Be ye therefore 
ready also, for in such an hour as ye think not 
the Son of man cometh.’ More ’n twenty folks 
I ’ve known in this country was called aboard 
the death-ship suddint-like. Ef I ’m overtook 
any whars near you, do n’t let me be buried like 
a hithen. Send for a parson, and have a hime 
an’ a prayer at my grave, or read ’em your- 
selves, ef he can’t be got. It will be more 
comfort to my mother’s good heart, in old 
Missouri, when she hears on it than ’most 
any thing else. I have sent her nigh onto ten 
thousand dollars to have for her own; and she 
writ me six months ago not to trouble about 
sendin’ her any more, for she had more’n 
would make her comfortable.” 

The solemnity of Pike’s manner, perhaps 
more than his words, impressed us; and some- 
how every eye was on his face when his voice 
hushed. We knew it was a kind, brave face 
that twitched with sympathy for every thing 
true and good, and that weakness and suffering 
could not look to it without being blessed, and 
with a niceness almost as rare as delightful. 

12 


178 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


It was earnest and quiet and sad, as his voice 
had been. But presently we all slept, and the 
dreams of the night, and the brightness of the 
day that followed, put away from our minds 
the soft words he had spoken. The second 
day, however. Mack and Virginia went hunt- 
ing, and I lingered about the tent. On looking 
toward the mine, an hour before noon, I saw 
Tom staggering toward me with a man in his 
arms. When I met him, he said: “ He ’s gone, 
Quien; bank caved in on him!” 

As I helped to lay Pike upon a blanket under 
shelter of an oak near the stream, I saw, indeed, 
he was quite dead. His back was broken, his 
breast crushed; besides, there was a mortal 
contusion of the skull. I asked Tom why he 
didn’t come for me to help bring him to the 
tent? 

“I tried to,” he replied, ‘‘but I could n’t. I 
couldn’t leave him down there by himself, 
though I knew he was dead. He never spoke, 
never breathed that I could see, after the great 
rock rolled over him. But, Quien, he looked 
like he was still alive; his lips appeared part- 
ing to utter some pleasantry, and the old smile 
preparing to send its ripples over his face. All 
the morning he has been even more buoyant 
than usual. What a bubble is life I We scarce 


CALIFOBNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 179 


see its form fully on the river of time ere, 
shattered by the unexpected blast, it disap- 
pears. It is like the music of a rill, barely 
heard ere it is hushed in the folds of the sigh- 
ing wind forever.” 

A Tennessee parson, who occasionally had 
shared our camp in the foot-hills, read the 
burial-service descriptive of the resurrection; 
and piling over the place large rocks, that the 
coyotes and wolves should haunt it to no pur- 
pose, we left our genial, fearless comrade alone 
in the shadow of the great hill, in a cluster of 
manzanita whose shiny limbs formed about 
him a dense hedge. 

But at the tent that night something was 
missing. The humorous gibe, the tender story 
uniquely told, the hopeful words, the soft 
though gleeful laugh, the gray eye that talked 
more than the tongue, the inhering courtesy 
that as naturally considered and conferred joy 
upon others as the diamond shines, the broad - 
breasted, tall form with womanly heart, of un- 
pretentious courage, was gone. And in the 
tent, and around the fire without, and in the 
shadow next the. thicket, there seemed vis- 
ible a space in the spaces, where Pike was 
wont to be, out of which came to us sorrowful 
whispers constantly bewailing his absence. 


180 CALIFORT^lA GOLD-FIELD SCEXEtl. 


And we talked of the pale one in the thicket 
of the dead. And mayhap you will not be re- 
pelled by our weakness when you read that 
hardened as we were, by rough scenes in the 
mines that 1 hide from you, as we thought and 
talked of him, one and another would turn his 
face to the dark, and try to repress the weep- 
ing that would sob in our hearts for him. 

However, after awhile Virginia said: “Once 
I stood next the guards of a palace-steamer far 
out at sea. The breath upon the deep was soft, 
the fathomless waters still and clear. The ship 
was at rest like a white fragment of sky on 
the quiet wave; its flag of stars and stripes 
drooped at half-mast like glory lamenting mis- 
fortune. Upon a plank lay a young physician 
who the day before was rosy with life. The 
cholera had stricken him down in the presence 
of his wife while, with a thousand others, they 
were voyaging to the golden shore. A sail was 
wrapped and sewed tightly round his body, 
leaving exposed only his head and face; a 
mass of stone-coal was bound to his feet, and 
his hair lay smoothed back from his dead face. 
About him many passengers were grouped — 
on the wheel-house, on the deck, upon chairs, 
or benches, or rope-coils they stood, awed; 
for among them the noiseless plague was pass- 


CALtmnKlA GOLD^hlELD SCENES. 181 


iiig to and fro, and already scores of the com- 
pany had shivered into death at its touch. 
The plank was tilted by two sailors, and the 
doctor glided feet-foremost down into the deep 
blue sea a few fathoms, and paused a moment, 
sunk deeper, paused, then deeper, and quivered 
and stood erect, motionless; buried at sea. 
The steam - whistle wailed, the bell tolled, 
strong men sighed, the machinery groaned, 
the engine awoke the wheels to rapid evolu- 
tions, the steamer moved on, and in the vibra- 
tory waters the doctor, down in his clear, blue 
grave standing, bowed again and again, his 
back to U8-— ‘a ‘ good-by ’ from the dead to the 
living. And then he was alone waiting there— 
waiting, deaf to every sound save that trumpet 
signal that sea and earth shall hear, and lift to 
their bosom all their dead children, to be 
caught up to meet the Lord in the air. To be 
buried in the sea of waters, or beneath the 
motionless rocks in the sea of mountains, what 
does it matter, so our houses of silence shall 
echo in the morning of Christ with salvation’s 
sound ? Shall we be ‘ ready ’ when he cometh ? ” 
Education has much to do with reputation, 
if not with character as well. It is a refining 
basanite. Pike had never polished under its 
culturing touches, but such was the native 


182 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


princeliness of his taste, impulse, and manner, 
such the brimful sprightliness and force of his 
mind, and so high-graded his emotions, that he 
had twined himself around our hearts like the 
vine of pure gold round the column of the sa- 
cred temple at Jerusalem. And when Virginia’s 
story closed, Tom’s face lit up with something 
like a blush, and he said: “When Leina con- 
sented for me to come to the gold-fields, she 
wept so much that in trying to soothe her I 
promised to adore God about twilight every 
day. She as much expects me to do so as she 
expects the devil not to be a saint; and I have 
disappointed her in so many things, if she 
could believe it, that I am trying not to in this. 
One twilight as we came down the mountains, 
last winter. Pike entered the icy thicket and 
quietly knelt near me, as he did daily there- 
after till his death. We never exchanged a 
remark concerning the habit all the months we 
observed it together. He said shortly after we 
opened this mine: ‘My heart is a surprise to 
me. Its hates are gone; peace and love make 
me glad all the time; and I think of God, 
eternity, and death with hope, without dread. 
My little sister Jule, who went to heaven when 
we were children together, has latterly come 
tripping about me in my sleep, and played with 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 183 


my hair as she used to in life; and last night 
when she left me she beckoned me to follow, 
and said, Soon. So she ’ll come for me before 
long; and it’s all right liere^ Tom, right with 
the heart. It loves the earth and its folks, 
and would be glad to throb a long while among 
’em; but it loves heaven and its angels, and 
believes it ’s a-goin’ there to be among ’em for- 
ever.’ ” 

Mack and I went up to the gray rocks lying 
upon Pike’s grave. The night was bright with 
the April skies. The air was fresh, though 
nearly motionless. In the dell, at the camp- 
fire, Virginia and Tom chatted, and now and 
then their voices broke upon the cairn where 
we sat like the monotones of invisibles. Huge 
rocks lay in enchanted meditation on shrubless 
knolls, and the ray lets twinkled merrily upon 
their wrinkled faces. The hazy patches of 
chaparral on the mountain over the hills 
peered from their lonesome beds into the som- 
ber ravines whose brinks they bordered ; and 
thirty feet from us a leafy covert quivered 
and bent about quietly, then was at rest again; 
and another farther on did likewise, and yet 
others; it was only the muffled zephyr greeting 
them on its journey from sea to mountain, and 
passed on, climbing down goi’ges, up precipices. 


184 CALIFORNIA 00LJL-F1ELD BOF'IFR. 

over heights, and amy, away. A hundred feet 
above us, and as many yards beyond, a stream- 
let tossed about on sleepless bed, and drummed 
hurried strains to air and plant and mossy 
shore, then leaped into the chasm, and floated 
up clouds of spray that hung above its splash, 
like a snowy veil woven for its bridal with the 
valley. Just at us a water-oak stood stretch- 
ing one budding branch, like a hand of bless^- 
ing, over Pike’s cairn, and its twigs glided re- 
peatedly as if fanned aside by a gentle sprite 
in noiseless ramble o’er the scene. The crickets 
chirped in the brush-wood, and near the roots 
of the tree glow-worms kindled their pale fires. 
A fawn bounded across a clear space into a 
shadowy one, and hied to a dense thicket, and 
a moment later a coyote leaped after it, and a 
startled rabbit sped to the cairn and hid at our 
feet. From the many-voiced streamlet, and 
thousands of twiggy Intes and rocky harps, 
iFolian hymns — low, adoring, reverential— 
mingled with the seeming hum of the worship- 
ing stars, till the jungle, the dead under the 
cairn, and the living above it, were lost from 
thought, and only God appeared. 

Mack seemed to have observed the scene 
closely, for he said: “This is a phase of earth’s 
night-life, in the golden solitude, that is en- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIFLD SCENES. 185 


trancing. Yet just now an innocent fawn was 
fleeing from covert to covert for life, and a 
harmless rabbit fled from its burrow to escape 
death there, and hid here in Pike’s cairn, where 
it trembles at every softest sound as if it shall 
be its death-knell. Is death everywhere, pur- 
suing every thing, nor resting at midday nor 
midnight? What is it, that all animated nat- 
ure pales in its breath, perishes in the way if 
but touched by it? As it relates to man, is it 
the ceasing to be of his being? Then that 
heart-flower, immortality, is a dream; and 
those brilliant devils Yoltaire and Bobespierre 
—calling massacre justice, the guillotine gentle 
mercy, and the submergence of religion and 
liberty in the red floods of tyranny patriotism, 
death an eternal sleep —were the world’s bene- 
factors ; and the lessons of the good Christ were 
dreamy lies. To believe that is to lodge in the 
soul the most preposterous absurdity. And 
yet the fact recurs, death is. What is it? It 
comes slowly sometimes, like the invincible 
soldier mining the citadel’s foundation ; swiftly 
sometimes, like the cloud’s bolt; and the ear 
becomes deaf, the eye blind, the lips dumb, the 
brain, the heart, the body still, and we bury 
or burn it, or leave it unurned to bleach to 
dust in the weather of ages. But ourself, the 


186 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 

soul, eternity’s heir, still lives, waiting in the 
mysterious shade beyond death to hear the 
voice of Christ reuniting it and its body to 
assign it its eternal destiny.” 



CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 187 


CHAPTER XXIIL 

I ’m evermore kissing her in the air. 


HE laughing sun had pushed the 
snow off the mountain, and warm 
zephyrs had fanned from the 
scene wintry airs, and spread it 
with tissued mantles of grasses, 
buds, and flowers, when our mine refused to 
yield any more golden grains. Its crevices, 
that hitherto had opened lips to show us mouth- 
fuls of nuggets, were now gemless, and we 
wandered through the echoing rifts and gorges 
prospecting for new deposits. 

Tom became intolerable. He would go to 
the shady side of the thickets, and stretch him- 
self upon the soft sward, crushing down a 
broad swath of wild flowers, and with a stone 
for a pillow — rather two stones, for he took 
two, putting the smaller ends together, forming 
a hollow in the middle for his head — dream 
away the bright days. There he would lie 
motionless, fat, strong, personified health; 
awake, yet asleep to every thing about him. 
Or he would take his pick and pan into the 




188 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


shadows ol the bluffs among which we pros- 
pected, and sit upon a mossy bowlder with 
about a hundred of Leina’s old letters on the 
moss at his feet, and read them. He did not 
read them with any method, not consecutively 
as to dates, too much trouble to sort ^em; but 
as his hand happened to clutch one from the 
pile he read it, turned back, read it again, and 
re-read it, sitting still, in one posture, like a 
ruddy, long-whiskered, pensive, puffed corpse. 
It did not occur to me at first what ailed him. 
I knew he was at times subject to fits of— lazi- 
ness. So for a week or two I said nothing 
remindful of his career. But it grew worse 
and worse. He neither dug in the pits, nor 
cooked, nor brought Avood nor Avater, nor 
kindled fires, nor set nor cleaned the table— 
log rather— nor av ashed dishes; but he ate. 
However, about the tenth day of this role liis 
appetite failed some, except Avhen Mack killed 
a deer; and might have failed much more Avith- 
out specially diminishing the toils of his gastric 
juices, to Avhose thorough exercise he ever 
deemed it venial to devote much time and care. 
He grumbled more than a farmer. And a 
farmer — peace and plenty to him! — grumbles 
at rain and dry, sun, moon, stars, day, night, 
cloud, clear, hay, barley, wheat, flocks, herds, 


CALIFOBNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 189 


oats, corn, cotton, earth, weather, and nothing, 
year in and year out. In this Tom was already, 
what he thought himself to be in every thing 
prospectively, a model farmer — though of farm- 
ing he knew nothing; he grumbled at every 
thing. The trees, though full of leaves, were 
leafless and cast no thick shades; the water, 
though the best, was brackish. The cheery 
skies were dismal, the hills of beauty were 
hideous. The graceful birds and their songs 
were unmusical, pestiferous little imps. The 
flowers were ugly, their odors poisonous, thougli 
of odor they were devoid. And every one and 
every thing were obnoxious, outrageous. 

So I went to one of his trysting-places 
one day, and said: “Tom, you are going to 
die.” 

“I know it,” he replied; “I have been feel- 
ing it coming on me a long time, ever since 
Pike left us. I am going to get out of this 
miserable, sickly, sterile, heathen, hateful 
country soon, if I have strength enough left, 
and die among civilized beings and objects. 
If I ever get away from it, I ’ll never come to 
it again till eternity wraps it in flames. And, 
Quien, you had best leave, too. I ’ve been tell- 
ing Virginia and Mack, the last month, that 
you are looking pale, thin, like a bloodless 


190 CAUFOENIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


skeleton, like a castaway mariner bound to a 
rock to starve by a thousand miles of waves. 
You have fallen off nearly as much as I have; 
and I’m so weak I can scarcely walk, much 
less work. It hurts me to talk; something’s 
the matter with my lungs; my breath is short.” 
And falling over upon his back in a thicker 
part of the shade, he groaned, and made out 
by dint of exertion to put his giant-like wrist 
in my hand, and said: “Examine, please, and 
tell me what is the matter with me.” 

I felt his pulse, laid bare his broad, fat breast, 
thumped it heavily with the sharp points of 
my knuckles, put my ear on his solid chest to 
listen to the regular rhythm of his perfect 
lungs, felt his steely muscles, had him put out 
his tongue as far as he could get it — scraped it 
with his bowie-knife, and looked down his 
sound throat, tickling its palate and glands 
with a grassy spray till he had several parox- 
ysms of coughing, made him spread his feet 
wide apart as possible, and looked at him. 

He watched me mournfully the while; and 
as my face hardened and grew sad, his became 
gloomier, and he said with betwixt-a-sigh-and- 
sob tone, “Well!” 

“Well,” I replied, “the case is unmistakable. 
How long have you been so? ” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 191 


“I think it struck me,” he said, “about last 
Christmas. But what is it? Is it fatal? ” 

“The malady,” I replied, “is like Clay’s 
baby’s whitening — a natural one. It is deeply 
seated, fearful in your case; the deadly fit is 
on you now.” 

“In the name of Leina, Quien,” he said, 
“and all that’s good, tell me what it is, and 
how long I can last.” 

“It’s an attack,” I replied, “of incompar- 
able laziness and befuddled nostalgia.” 

Springing to his feet, he muttered the word 
“fool,” and walked away rapidly toward the 
mountain, and we saw him scale a monster rock, 
with the agility and strength of a grizzly, and 
disappear in the shady dell beyond. 

That night he said to me: “You are right. 
I am homesick unendurably. Leina is ever 
before me; I’m evermore kissing her in the 
air, and talking to her. The children are 
constantly climbing into my lap, upon my 
shoulders, or yelling delightedly about me. 
1 see them all, awake or asleep. I know they 
are weary of boarding. Leina always insisted 
that a family is never so happy as when in a 
home of its own. One’s own house, trees and 
grass, and flower-plats, one’s own folks and 
birds within and without doors, one’s own 


192 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


home is a heart-garden though a wilderness is 
its bower, a waste its outlook, and poverty its 
purveyor. I settled it on the mountain to-day. 
I am going to Leina. I have been figuring it 
up; I have sent to her the last few years not 
quite twenty thousand dollars;” like all his 
figuring, wrong, and this time by as much again 
in his favor; “it’s little enough to begin farm- 
ing with on mi/ plan. But I’ll soon quad- 
ruple it. Mack and Virginia and you must 
share the gold now in hand, if you ’ll pay my 
fare home; for I have been a dead-head a long 
time.” 

And home he started the next day with barely 
nuggets enough to ticket him through. But 
a check for nearly seven thousand dollars, his 
share of the gold in hand when he left, danced 
over the billows for him, without his knowledge, 
in the same steamer that bore him from the 
golden State. 




CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 193 


CHAPTER XIV. 

DAKK-EYED SEXOKITAS WAITING THEIR COMING. 
THE DEAD ONE IN THE HEART OF THE FLAMES. 


HE rigor and toil, mining in wet 
pits, had made it judicious for 
Virginia to take a valley vacation. 
He left, with his pack upon his 
back, for a trading- post; thence 
he journeyed mule-back. He returned within 
the month healthy as ever, with stories of fresh 
cream and milk, and butter, and grapes, and 
honey, and peaches, and women and children, 
so delightful to us in the telling that we knew 
he had dipped in the borders, at least, of con- 
ventional life again, and regretted that we had 
not shared the trip. But we had uncapped a 
paying placer just before he got back, which 
contented us. 

We had learned to value him specially for 
the information, trustfulness, and quiet cour- 
age that were transparent in his clear-cut 
character. The good manners that obtain in 
the unpretentious class of cultured Virginians 
13 




194 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


graced him habitually. I have often thought 
that the reason why the Mexican had not killed 
him before he neared our camp the night of 
the snow-storm, was because he feared to make 
alone, even an assassinous stroke against him, 
and wished to get him to his brother’s camp 
where help would be at hand. But fearing he 
could not decoy him farther, he took the 
chances with the precipice to help him to 
murder him, at a blow and the fall, with noth- 
ing to betray him. But the belt of gold pre- 
vented, and the surprised scream revealed him. 
So he took neither life nor gold. Virginia had 
remarked concerning it: “He could have slain 
me anywhere along the route, for not a sus- 
picion of evil in him had crossed my mind.” 

The valley trip had its strange scenes, too, 
for Virginia. But we must let you hear him 
tell them in the tent-door with us. 

“We moved along,” he said, “man and mule 
muffing the breeze spiced with the fragrance 
of clover and wild grasses, to the Merced valley. 
The trail wound south of the beaten track, 
across bald hills, one and another with mural 
sides, and through valleys pent into little plats, 
and a gray streak of dust marked the gravelly 
track we made across the plains. I got to a 
bluff of the willowy river about noon one day. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 195 


and leaving the mule to feed in grass breast- 
high to him, I noted, while lunching, the 
valley scene. It was about three miles from 
bluff to bluff at that place, and widened to the 
view down the narrow river that looked in its 
rocky channel like flowing silver. A mile 
below me an isle-like hill, shaded with broad 
oaks, lifted its bust above the willows and 
vines; and lakes of clover jiround it in which 
cattle appeared to be swimming and browsing 
as in green waves. And herds and flocks fed 
also upon and around it, looking like elephants 
in the mirage that magnified them, as they 
moved from plat to plat, or stood upon the 
isle -top and looked down upon the green 
stretches, and the seemingly swim-ming pine. 
The bees drumming about me from flower to 
flower, and the quaint speckled magpies in the 
cosy nooks with their fussy courtesies, kept me 
company till the cool of the evening, when I 
set out down the valley to find a ranch. Keg- 
iments of crows were in flight over it, and here 
and there a cawing straggler skirred by to 
overtake the main body. Now and then a deer 
bounded away from the lonely pitapat of my 
mule along the trail, and sped toward the 
plains. Fawn-like rabbits loped carelessly 
about me, and the whir of an eagle quickened 


196 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


my pulse, as he, bore one of them squeaking 
into the willows. A bear, at the edge of a 
blackberry thicket, reared on his haunches 
and held out his arms to greet me. And twi- 
light came, and darkness settled upon the 
valley, and yet I had found no ranch. The 
rank weeds interwove across the untraveled 
trail, as throngs of fire-flies lit up th6 path for 
me with their dancing candles. A wolf howled 
near me, and the querulous coyotes screamed 
their peculiar chorus. I had begun to feel 
nervous enough, when a fierce growl a few 
yards to my left, scared my mule from under 
me, or me off my mule. At any rate I found 
myself, quicker than I can tell it, on my back 
in the weeds, and then on a limb up an old 
oak, whose outstretched boughs tangled, may 
be, at the affrighted leap I made to get into 
them. I listened, from the limb, to my mule 
plunging frantically through a lagoon, as he 
tore away across the gloomy bottom. But a 
nearer trouble claimed my thought, a noise 
like dogs cfaunching bones; and I could see 
dimly the willov/s sway to and fro in that par- 
ticular spot. Just then other fierce growls 
woke up my hair, and soon the pack of wolves 
snapped and howled, fighting round my tree, 
as though the bone of contention trembled 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 197 


about where I sat on the limb. In a few 
minutes, however, some had trotted back to 
the thicket, though several remained at the 
foot of the tree munching the hard-worn frag- 
ments. 

“The timber of the valley has one defect; 
occasionally a ponderous limb, shooting out at 
right angles from the body of the tree thirty 
or forty feet, by weight of foliage and action 
of heat and dry winds, would snap asunder 
suddenly and crash to the ground. This had 
not occurred to me perched in my leafy retreat, 
but soon the reminder came. For as I was 
safely, as I thought, peering down to fix the 
number and position of the wolves, a sudden 
pop-pop, and my limb crashed to the ground. 
I clutched for my knife as I fell, and yelled 
with horror. Though tangled in the branches 
of the fallen limb, and struggling to swing my- 
self into another bough, I was aware by the 
“oughs” of the wolves, and the thuds of their 
wild leaps as they fled from the place, that 
they thought something had happened— what, 
they shouldn’t stay to see. But neither did 
I stop for any thing till I was secure in the 
topmost fork of the tree. I discovered, up 
there, that in my fright I had not even drawn 
my knife from its sheath. So if the wolves 


198 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


had attacked and had not fled, I should have 
been as easy a prey as the deer whose frag- 
ments they were gnawing when I drojjped 
among them. They, doubtless, were terrified 
by my yell, for there is truth in the saying 
that the beasts of the forests are frightened at 
the human voice. My downfall taught me how 
to quicken a dull mind; for the velocity with 
which mine traced my body into pieces, and 
each piece turned into a wolf, was quick as a 
wink, had seen it all before the first pop of the 
breaking limb had more than touched the alert 
ear. But as the night wore on, and the merry 
stars slyly winked at me, my mind dipped into 
the sea of laughing ether till the tree-top itself 
seemed happy with merriment. 

“ Soon the moon rose and poured pale glory 
upon every thing, yet her light revealed to my 
eager eye no sign of human habitation. And 
now the ticking of my watch was the noisiest 
sound I heard for an hour, except the cry of 
an owl, that seemed too lonesome to hoot more 
than once; for a few moments after its mourn- 
ful call died out it sailed on silent wing over 
my retreat, and I watched it out of sight -mov- 
ing up the winding river. The flight of the 
old necromancer deepened my sense of dreari- 
ness, yet reminded me of the convenience of 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 199 


my leafy observatory for a talk with the stars. 
But to every thing I said to them they replied 
by only widening their bright eyes, and in 
jerky fidgets; and I lamented that I had no 
magic to entice them to tell me of the worlds 
they journeyed around, the strange spaces 
they traversed, their sufferings and their joys. 

“That wonder, midnight, lay dreaming; 
dreaming in the firmament, dreaming on groves 
and river and plain. The shadows under the 
trees, the moonbeams in the air, were asleep. 
Nature had folded her starry mantle around 
her, and, leaning on the arm of God, breathed 
softly in trustful slumber. And incessant 
chant, drawn from the harp of solitude, in 
noiseless gush poured through the brain its 
mysterious delirium, thrilling the being with 
harmonies, till in its witchery the soul is con- 
scious that not a sound in earth’s realm rivals 
the musical reverie then dreamed by the ear. 
What is it? 

“Is it the rhythmic voices of light coming, 
ever coming adown the heavens, to mingle with 
the voices of the blood gurgling out of the 
‘golden bowl,’ flowing ever in softest strains, 
to cheer the body as it wears away? 

“From the sky it floats down, from the earth 
it floats up, inaudible, yet well heard, the voice- 


200 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


less music of silence. AVe see the silent flow 
of the wave when the air lies asleep upon its 
crest, but we feel the liquid sound thereof. 
The melody of silence is articulate like it. 

“Is it the music of the spheres? Can we 
catch it, retain it long enough to word one 
sweet strain of its countless euphonies ? Here 
they are above, beneath, around, within us, 
softly opening every fountain of* the soul till 
it smiles, or weeps, or shouts a voiceless shout 
of joy, and feels like leaping out upoq the sea 
of space to melt away and float off with the 
silent strains that come, always come pouring 
through us into the heart the melodies of silence. 

“Is it the song of the sun-rays dying in the 
lap of night? Or is it the gushing up to the 
ear of God of the secret prayers of the good of 
earth, meeting the answers coming down from 
the throne of grace? 

“The little children in their white robes, 
ready for crib and trundle, kneeling, hands 
clasped, hearts reverencing, lips parted, prat- 
tling tongues naming to God Jesus. AATiat 
a little mighty company! AVhat a cloud of 
prayers of innocence toddling up through the 
solitude of space! How low and musical their 
voices! AA^hat sweetness must their echoes 
trace upon each airy wavelet that lies between 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 201 

their little naked knees and the throned Christ 
sending by cherubim the smiles of God down 
upon them. This music of silence, is it the 
echoes of child- voices ? saying: 

Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray thee, Lord,, iny soul to keep ; 

If I should die before I wake 
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take, 

For Jesus’ sake. Amen. 

“I know not what it is. I know that it is; 
that it voices somehow to the soul a mysterious 
melody that sets it to thinking of ‘the things 
unseen.’ ” 

Mack interrupted him here. His practical 
mind seemed to take alarm at “the melodies 
of silence,” and he suggested: “Is not silence 
comparative, not absolute. Can there be a 
moment when there are not sounds in nature? 
and if a sound, her silence is not complete; 
and the waves of sound bearing a sound, how- 
ever soft and low, disturb sources of sound 
that add another voice, and these others as they 
swim in the spaces; and so the noiseless soli- 
tude is really vocal with sounds so tender, it 
may be, that the ear cannot articulate them, 
separately, from the music of the blood forever 
flowing in its mechanism. 

“ Thought may have a sound that reports it 


202 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


to thought; mercy may have a song as she 
comes with blessing; emotion may have notes 
that make its presence felt, but so soft that the 
ear cannot hold them longer than only for the 
soul to catch them, yet not to note their artic- 
ulation. In a world of sound-forces, many of 
them must be ringing every moment, and their 
journeying cadences refined, etherealized, min- 
gling with the blood’s song in the ear, are the 
melodies of silence. We hear them in, they 
sound in, silence in that from its quiet realm 
every harsher note is excluded. Your tree-toj) 
reverie of melody must have been delightful.” 

“Yes,” replied Virginia, “it was; and the 
fact deepened my regret when I saw, before I 
heard them, two horsemen, one close after the 
other, coming straight across the bottom. The 
pale moonbeams revealed their girdles of 
weapons. The jingle of their heavy spurs, 
and the grating of the horses’ hoofs crossing a 
rocky lagoon, frighted from the willows a band 
of antelope that fled in pell-mell leaps under 
my tree, passing toward the southern bluffs. 
They came on leisurely as before, however, 
those dusky midnight riders, as though not a 
pulse were quickened by the sky-lit bounds of 
the brown racers. They rode with bowed 
heads, only every few rods they turned them 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 203 


quickly right and left, peering athwart the 
waste, and reined up in a group of trees with- 
in a hundred feet of me. 

“ Striking a match they lit cigarettes, which, 
when pufPed into thin smoke that drooped in 
the breathless quiet, they replaced with others. 
And without having exchanged a syllable, they 
moved into the thickets of willows; and in a 
little while the waters splashed over there as 
they crossed the river going toward Tulare. 
I had felt for my purse on sight of them, but 
it was already gone. Before they came I had 
sighed for the presence of man, and scanned 
the dreary bottom again and again, hoping to 
glimpse a human being. But the long breath 
I drew when they were out of sight, out 
of hearing, left me contented to be alone. 
Whither were they going, on what errand, to 
what fate, those speechless, nighted, heavily 
armed, gloomy Mexicans? 

“Perhaps they were edging ruin that soft 
night of witchery; and on their souls the 
shadows had fallen, like ghosts tokening to 
them the hurrying woe. Perhaps they were 
‘honest miners’ tired of the gold-hunt, and 
were speeding to the banana-groves of their 
tropic homes, dreaming, as they went, of 
the dark-eyed senoritas waiting, watching, 


204 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


yearning for their coming. God keep them 
in the way if they had pure love in their 
hearts! For the angel Love works no ill to 
his neighbor. A lineal descendant of the skies, 
heaven lives where he dwells, and blesses where 
he lives. When upon a. world of hate Jesus 
looked, he wept, and laying a hand of blessing 
on it, said, ‘Love.’ ” 

“Mexicans,” said Mack, “love sehoritas with 
romantic flames, but experience little of its 
thrill toward Anglo-Americans. They are 
bitter, and I do not say unjustly so, that we 
have overlapped their golden borders. Yet 
Mexico, a mine of gems, an agricultural allu- 
vium, a pastoral, foliaged with precious stones, 
fruits, and flowers, is kindling for fusion with 
us. Its legends of tribal glory, its romances 
of love and gold and power, the glitter of its 
semi-barbarous religion, like the aisles of a 
cathedral in ruins thronged with precious 
memories, are dear to its people. Yet they 
are aspiring to the surpassing realities that 
base and zone and canopy our Protestant 
realm with order, liberty, and prosperity.” 

“Their destiny,” said Virginia, “shall, I 
hope, be as glorious as their land. But the 
tree-top in the valley was more peaceful by far 
to me ■when the Mexican horsemen were gone. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. ^05 


And, as if rejoicing with me, several meteors 
traced bright paths through the sea of air, and 
I joyfully observed their spangled trails fade 
from purple into hazy blue, and perish in the 
horizon. Sleep’s lethed sensations were steep- 
ing me with forgetfulness afterward, when a 
bright light eclipsed the stars, accompanied by 
a muffled roar, and the burning meteor, several 
inches in diameter, raced athwart the heavens, 
and far out over the western plains burst 
into fragments, and in hundreds of sparkles 
dropped out of sight. 

“Over me the planets had shone all night, 
and poured steady glory on the scene, and I 
honored them with quiet glances only. But 
this glary, fussy thing had lifted me to my feet 
in the tree-top, and won by its red rush my 
admiration and wonder. It was the creature 
of a moment, of eccentric course, without brave 
steadiness of flames; had suddenly burst out 
its soft brains against the pure ether it essayed 
to voyage, while the planets, from their lofty 
heights were still shining, forever shining 
steady, constant, true. And I said: ‘I am 
what Tom called Quien in the trysting-place 
diagnosis — a fool ; the nearest wonder charms 
me most.’ But I sat down again in my aerie, 
though delighted still with my meteor; and 


206 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


comfort, that sometimes comes from very un- 
seemly sources, came to me in the thought 
that I was not an uncommon fool at any rate. 
For the meteor is only the demagogue among 
the stars, hazing their splendors by its sky- 
larking flight and hum. And is it not common 
to applaud tlie demagogue ? He rolls in mete- 
oric glare between us and the true, great men, 
and we laud his gyratory career, neglectful of 
the modest, unselfish, real, great workers in 
Church and State, who flood the world with 
good. 

“ The meteor had repelled the tides of sleep, 
and its short life and tragic death evoked 
memories almost smothered by the cumulose 
experiences of the gold-fields. Of these mem- 
ories, ‘school-days’ were just then freshest; 
and the boys of long ago rose up like visions 
of hope, and grew larger as they came toward 
the tree, and at its roots they were men; and 
one and another came climbing up to me in a 
jolly way, till many were there with me, grouped 
about upon the limbs. Soon a change came 
over them from merry to serious, till the tree 
appeared to be peopled by men with folded 
arms, reflecting upon all the way their feet had 
come in the journey of life. They represented 
the professions, and several industrial arts. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 207 


Some liad achieved distinction, most were 
hopefully biding it. There were others whose 
happy voices rang in memory’s play-ground, 
who grouped not with us now, but were sleep- 
ing in graves among pines and palms and oaks. 
Some fell in the red fields of the Mexican war; 
several perished in personal feuds; over others 
fevers had piled the earth; delirium tremens 
had raged away the lives of two or three ; others 
were dead though living, for licentiousness had 
made them loafers. Yet even these lazily saun- 
tered to the tree, and sung out in the old time 
tones, ‘Halloo, boys! come down out o’ that!’ 

“You have met an hour that brought about 
you the boys, and their traits, you were a boy 
with, now grown to be men; and of them there 
was not one that you did not feel, however life 
had muddied him, like putting your arms 
around, and talking over with him the scrapes 
and joys you and he had shared together. 
Such an hour was this to me; and though I 
knew not if one of them was on the coast, yet 
here they were with me, treed ; even the ghosts 
of some seemed to be sitting about among the 
living; now a rolicking company, now a moody 
though cheerful older company, dearer for the 
lines of care, dearer for the casts of thought 
the conflicts of years had printed on their 


208 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


brows. How the old heart, manhood’s heart, 
goes back, backward, backward, arms stretched 
out, to rub against its play-day mates, and 
turns when it touches them, to greet them with 
smiles and words as in the long ago. So I 
mused till, when I looked about me again, my 
old playmates were all gone. They had dropped 
out of the tree one after another, while I was 
thinking, and hid from me. I called, and they 
wouldn’t answer, and I scringed lest some 
mischievous ones of them were about to 
‘chunk’ me out the tree-top from their hiding- 
places. But they were gone, the happy hour that 
bore them to me would not be recalled. Pike 
seemed then to stretch himself on the big limb 
next me, and leaning on his elbow with his old 
self-poise, said to me, as he did in our last 
hunt together: ‘Virginny, as our old mates 
drop from the path o’ the living, and vanish 
out o’ sight, so some time it will be with us. 
Don’t forget, Virginny, to be ready for that 
time.’ And he had gone, too, and I was alone 
again among the tenantless boughs. 

“ The short night was verging toward morn- 
ing when a fire sprung up in the solitary bottom 
a few hundred yards back of me. It was a full 
blaze when I first beheld it, and the nearly 
naked forms of many Indians were soon mov- 


CALIFOENIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 209 


ing about it. Their grotesque shapes were 
sharply defined as they passed between me 
and the fire they had kindled in a heap of dry 
logs. And I saw, as a band of them placed 
upon the pyre the dead body of one of the 
tribe, that many others hurried to pile upon 
the glowing heap great fragments of dry drift- 
wood. They reminded me of fiends tottering 
under burdens of fuel to add to perdition’s 
fury. Soon their dead comrade was ablaze, 
and his limbs, as the burning heap jostled and 
settled, moved and twisted about, and the 
whole form afire seemed to writhe in convul- 
sions, as the flames moved this way and that, 
as the startled air rushed from or toward the 
pyre. The black smoke went up in gusts, and 
hung in dark clouds just above them, and 
every now and then the red heat and dancing 
sparkles shot up, in fantastic gyrations, into 
its bosom, then dropped back to the crackling 
heap whose hissing roar drummed in my ear. 
The Indians had formed in bands a few yards 
from the pyre, and now and then gestured; 
and I caught the notes of a wild chant. Soon 
they whirled in frenzied circles round and 
round the burning mass; and moans and 
shrieks reached me, resounded like some imp- 
ish dirge breaking upon the chaste wastes of 
14 


210 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


paradise. Eound and round and around they 
whirled in leaping, capering antics; distorting, 
contorting their dark, squirmy bodies; now 
solemnly erect, then rushing in frantic coils 
round the burning pyre again and again, until 
they seemed to be the black, impish, quivering 
brink of h — 1. Then they fell apart, down, 
and rolled over and over without the fire circle, 
into the shadow of the trees, and uttered a 
woful howl that agonized through the grove, 
and shattered into fiercely mournful echoes 
against the thicker belt of timber that bordered 
the river. Then all was silence, not an Indian 
in sight but the remnants of the dead one in 
the heart of the flames. Suddenly an old gray- 
haired man, and crone, hopped out from the 
shadow into the circle of light, and crouched 
together close to the smoldering body. They 
were still as stumps, save every now and then 
they lifted their hands on high and wrung 
them; and I knew they were chanting a wail, 
as sounds like sorrow tortured once or twice 
filled me with a pathetic grief I could not re- 
sist, until their lorn stark scream shrieked 
through the tree-top where I sat, startling me 
to my shivering feet, as they tossed over and 
Qver back into the shadows again. 

‘‘Presently other fires were kindled, and the 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 211 


squaws were engaged in toasting pieces of flesh 
and entrails of beasts, and bearing them on 
scales of bark to the warriors squatting on the 
sward. And I saw one snatch a raw entrail 
from the clutch of a squaw, and eat it dangling 
between his teeth, with a greedy gusto like a 
beast. Soon several dusky runners entered 
upon the scene bearing the black bottles of 
civilization, and the whisky gave to the execra- 
ble feast a turn that made the camp appear 
like the habitation of dragons. 

“How beautiful to me then was Christianity! 
The burial scene, long ago, of my little win- 
some, soft-eyed sister passed before me. The 
tasteful temple, the delicate case covered in 
flowers, the prayers and hopeful words of the 
minister, and sweet hymns of the decorous 
assembly, the words of the resurrection shed- 
ding light upon the flowered grave where we 
left her asleep in Jesus, were to me a charm 
like voices from the heavenly world.” 

We were silent now. For involuntary tears 
had fallen along Virginia’s cheeks, from the 
moment he had said “my little winsome, soft- 
eyed sister,” and his words thenceforward had 
been tremulous and low' and tender, till he 
paused. And I must trust you to pardon me 
for saying that I stepped without the tent into 


212 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


the shadows; for my little sister Addie, too, 
had said to me wdien she died: “I shall be in 
heaven, brother, waiting, just waiting to kiss 
you there, Quien.” And she seemed to me to 
be saying the words to me again, in her coax- 
ing, soft way, and I did not care to be seen 
weeping. O there are words niched away in 
the heart’s depths that touch it so tenderly, at 
times, that it would nearly break were it not 
for tears! 



CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 213 


CHAPTER XXV. 

HER EYES WAS MIGHTY STRETCHT, AN’ 
SCART-LIKE. 



jY dawn,” said Virginia, when lie 
resumed his narrative, “the In- 
dians were gone; and descending 
from the tree, I found my purse 
among the branches of the limb 
that had fallen with me early in the night. I 
pursued the mule’s track, and wading the la- 
goon, found my blanket pack just beyond it. 
After going three or four miles I met an Iowan 
who told me he had corralled the mule, and 
w^as tracing its tracks to discover the rider. 
‘I am glad,’ he said, ‘that you are safe, and 
within a mile can welcome you to a breakfast 
of salmon and flapjacks.’ He added, as we 
moved toward his ranch; ‘Let me persuade you 
to tarry with me a spell. Just now is a time 
of leisure with me; stay, and help me to be 
lazy.’ The proposal being ‘pat to my natur’,* 
as Pike used to intimate, I accepted, thanking 
him for discerning my talent. 

“‘Your talent,’ he said, ‘is not rare. I de- 


214 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 

voted yesterday to the lazy problem; and calc’- 
lating 1,200,000,000 people in the world, I fig- 
ured up seven industrious members of the 
small community; and the laziness of the re- 
mainder averaged twenty tons each. I put 
you down at fifty tons.’ 

“‘Me!’ I exclaimed; ‘you knew nothing of 
me. How did you manage to particularize so 
nicely?’ 

“ ‘A month or so ago,’ he replied, ‘ I traveled 
by stage with a ruddy man who described his 
claim, and said he could have gotten rich upon 
it were it not for three of his partners, who, 
besides being the poorest of financiers, were 
the most industrious miners at being lazy in 
the gold-fields, and that one of them would 
visit this valley this season. That’s the way 
I come at the heft of you talent. I take you 
to be one of Bothleit’s partners.’ 

“Our pleasantest and a novel amusement 
was shooting salmon as they struggled up the 
shallows of the river, or were resting in the 
crystal pools. They were easily killed by rifie, 
or revolver, as far below the surface as six to 
eight inches; but to obtain them certainly, 
after having shot them, it was important that 
the bullet pierced their heads just back of the 
eyes; then they invariably floated to the sur- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 215 


face with faint struggles, and were pulled 
ashore with canes, or taken as they floated 
down the shallows. We lost several seven or 
eight pounders by inaccurate shots; and when 
any were missed, it was strangely exciting to 
observe their alarm at the concussion, and the 
agile freaks of curves and angles they dis- 
played in darting to shelter in the clear depths. 

“ The Indians capture them with a long stick, 
to one end of which a nail or piece of hard 
wood is bound so as to dangle, to which a 
string is attached that tightened along the pole 
brings the nail to a point when thrust into the 
fish, but falls to a horizontal when the string is 
loosed; and the lithe creature cannot then get 
away, however it struggles, unless an opening 
tear through its sides two or three inches long. 
V/ith this instrument they take many of them 
in the running season. They follow the river 
for miles, the squaws carrying their infants 
upon their backs in funnel-shaped baskets, or 
willow lathes, and piles of salmon also; for 
their haughty lords scout every burden, except 
consummate ugliness be one. 

While wandering on the river-side, I saw a 
company of them catching small fish. They 
dived to the bottom, and felt with their hands 
under the roots and rocks and banks; and oft- 


216 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


eii they would bound to the surface, a fish 
between their teeth, and one in each hand. 
Occasionally they posed, as they rose to the 
surface, with a cunning leer at their sweet- 
hearts on tho shore, as though about to eat 
alive the wriggling fish between their teeth, 
and their darlings looked down upon them, and 
smiled. So the Indian, though his life is dark 
with savagery, has his Eed Cloud to gild it 
with joy. 

‘‘ Everywhere, woman is the earth-angel. In 
this instance her black hair is coarse as horse- 
mane, grows low down upon her forehead, is 
quite unkempt; but it is her own, not borrowed; 
hair, not flossed bark. This she leaves to the 
Blonde Cloud who pours smiles upon the In- 
dian’s kind — Christianized white brother, who 
never cheats him of any of his land except the 
whole of it, nor of any of his fisheries and 
game-haunts except all of them. 

“AVearying of fish, we crossed the treeless 
plains southward to visit an old Arkansas 
frontiersman whose life had been spent trap- 
ping and hunting. AVe soon parted in the roll 
of hills, attempting to reach different bands of 
antelopes, and I had ridden an hour without 
more than glimpsing him upon the brown 
landscape. AVhile watching a band of ante- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 217 


lopes grazing, at the base of a knoll, in the 
manner of goats, he turned the jjoint at full 
speed and gave chase to the surprised, bound- 
ing creatures, singling from the rest a lordly 
stag, whose dingy antlers like sprangled sta- 
lactites Vere thrown back on its shoulders as 
it sped wildly toward the tules. The space 
slowly diminished between them till, ere eight 
hundred yards had been raced, white puffs of 
smoke told me the revolver was at work, and in 
a few more convulsive leaps the antlered king 
fell over upon the sward, his last race run; and 
we left him there upon his native heather. 
The Iowan said: ‘This is the second antelope 
I have fairly outrun with this mustang. A 
really fleet horse would have come up with 
him in two-thirds the distance. Antelopes 
scarcely ever go more than a mile in three 
minutes.’ 

“The mustang, as to beauty of form, speed, 
and bottom, is usually overstated. The domes- 
ticated horse often excels him in those quali- 
ties, as well as in docility. He is too, perhaps 
invariably, tricky to the end. The one my 
friend rode was a select specimen, aixl had 
been subdued to the saddle for three years. 
Y,et I would not have risked his bucking devil- 
try— or, to phrase it less aptly, bucking in genu- 


218 califounia gold-field scenes. 


ity — for him. His master, however, seemed to 
grow to him joyfully in his mad, stiff-legged, 
bouncing, jerking leaps, to unseat him, of 
which ^bucking' is the descriptive appellation. 

“The flowers had retreated from the plains 
to the quaggy spots of the valley, and fringed 
them with variegated bea-uty. And the wild 
oats, having long matured, had fallen before 
the winds and wild animals, and were lying in 
tangles of waste over thousands of smooth 
acres. The old hunter had pitched his tent 
near the bank of the small river of the valley 
we had entered. Perhaps the name, Mariposas 
Butterflies, was given expressive of its flowery 
splendor in spring attracting myriads of that 
many-hued insect, to wing away their short 
lives, dancing through its charming mazes. 

“He was absent, but his wife and children 
Welcomed us. Our meal was stewed rabbit 
and boiled cracked wheat — nothing else, save 
the inimitable pleasantry of the apologies of 
the hostess. What a being is an amiable, 
pure-spirited woman! That dinner was a lux- 
ury, made so by the welcome of the heart, which 
set a joy with us richer than a feast at v/hich 
no viands were missing, not even a wolconn^ but 
this lacking the unique grace of expression and 
manner of this daughter of the frontier. She 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 219 


knew nothing of ‘polite life,’ yet so truly did 
she blend in her character the high virtues of 
refined womanhood that a princess could not 
have exceeded her in commanding respect and 
imparting happiness. 

“But the hunter was at home an hour after 
dinner with supplies, and made us know we 
were as near home as we could be outside our 
own tents. We were on the plains next morn- 
ing, and by midday had killed more antelopes 
than we could conveniently pack to the tent. 
We had lunched and napped upon the carpet 
of clover, under some low-boughed oaks, when 
our eyes were arrested by a far-off rifleman 
afoot, passing toward the valley. And the 
hunter’s spy-glass brought his form so near 
that he recognized him as his brother; and the 
Iowan rode briskly away, leading a horse to 
bear him to our shade. He ate tlie remainder 
of our lunch while detailing a murder perpe- 
trated thirty miles away two nights before. 
He said: ‘It was jest two old folk a-livin’ by 
therselves; an’ they lived in as pritty a cove as 
runs out from the main valley of the Merced, 
a leetle way among the hills. They was as 
inner cent a good old couple as you ever see, 
a-tryin’ to be happy by hard work, an’ nobody 
lived nigh onto them. A caravan o’ Mexicans 


220 CALtFonmA gold-field scenes. 


had spent the day close by, and had bought 
melons from ’em. They went to bed arly, and 
a leetle arter night set in some Mexicans come 
in their tent and cut the poor old man to death, 
an’ tied the ole ’oman an’ rolled her under the 
bed onto the dirt floor, an’ tol’ her one on ’em 
would stay thar and watch her ontil mornin’, 
an’ ef she moved he would cut her heart out 
alive. An’ thar she lay ontil arter midnight, 
poor ole fursaken creetur, a-scart to ketch her 
breath a’most; the blood out o’ her husband’s 
heart were a-drappen’ off the bed onto her 
face, an’ all about on her. But hearin’ nothin’ 
but the blood draps a-patterin’ agin her cheeks 
an’ ’bout on her hands an’ dress, an’ the owls 
a-hooten’ in the tree over the tent, she arter 
awhile ontied herself, an’ peered ’bout in the 
dark, for the moon wern’t nigh riz, an’ the 
blessed ole creetur as she crept about slipped 
down in the blood an’ hurt herself. But seein’ 
an’ hearin’ nothin’, she crept out .into the dark, 
an’ crossed the river, an’ the bar thickets, an’ 
the big bottom ’mong the beasts, ontil she got 
out on t’other side, an’ went to the stage-stand 
afore day-break, an’ tole ’em thar about it. 
Her eyes was mighty stretcht, an’ still, an’ 
scart-like, when she were a-talkin’ o’ the blood 
a-drippin’ an’ a-fallin’ pitapat, drip, drip, pita- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 221 


pat, pit, pit, pitapat on her face an’ neck; an’ 
like the tarnal fool I alius was, I went to cry- 
in’ an’ a-breshin’ the blood off o’ her, a-sayin’: 
‘Never you mind it any more, mother; never 
you mind it; you’s ’mong frien’s now. We’ll 
captivate ’em afore noon, an’ regerlate ’em by 
ther necks to a limb.’ But the women tuck 
her right away to ther room, an’ was a-whisper- 
in’, an’ runnin’ round mighty soft in no time; 
fur they said she were fainted.’ 

“We were all silent before the naked horror 
of the statement. And the hunter’s brother 
added: ‘ We sarched the valley and the hills for 
them murderin’ robbers, but found none we 
could believe was the right ones.’ 

“‘I have read,’ said the Iowan, making a 
slight rift in the gloom the story had put upon 
us, ‘that the man who commits one homicide 
is likely to kill others; that to shed blood 
creates an inclinatiQn to shed blood.’ 

“‘I have learned to b’lieve thaty' replied the 
hunter; ‘I’ve known it to be that way. A 
human is like a miser’ble lion that’s got a 
taste o’ our blood — he’s greedy to lap it ag’in. 
Better destroy a man-killer afore he kills 
someboby else; he’s whetted up fur it. It’s 
so with me. I hate a snaky Injun wherever I 
sees him, an’ am real sorry these pesky Cali- 


222 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


forny tribes ain’t wiitli sliootin’. I Ve bad so 
many fracases with ther sort on the branches 
o’ the Massysip that my fingers naterly feel 
for the trigger when I see one o’ the yallar 
sarpints. I feel like sliootin’ him just to see 
him jump, or to hear his death-yell at the 
crack o’ the gun. I ’ve got at my tent now the 
best razor-strap you ever see, made out’n a 
piece o’ the hide o’ one on ’em we killed atween 
Pike’s Peak an’ the Platte. I ’ll show it to you 
when we get back thar to-night.’ 

‘‘And dreading lest there might be truth in 
his theory, I said to him on the spot: ‘Friend, 
I ’m black-haired, and rather dark, sun-tanned, 
you know; and my clothes are none of the best. 
If you see an Indian on the plains this even- 
ing, take second look before you shoot; may 
be it’s me. And I’m not ready yet for the 
jump and death-yell at the crack of your gun.’ 

“That night at the tent he showed us his 
‘ In j un-hide razor-strap,’ and it was a good 
one. It was thick as calf-skin, open-grained, 
yet delicately smooth to the touch. And he 
said, ‘I stripped it off from atween his 
shoulders.’ ” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 223 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

APPEARED AS THOUGH THE DEAD WERE RISEN, 
AND WERE MOVING, GROUPING, PARTING IN 
NOISELESS AWE. 



OCALTTIES affect iis. Mount- 
ains impart their ruggedness, 
not rudeness; valleys their soft- 
ness. In the one the mind 
dreams quick, clear, but dreams, 
yet mounts over obstructions, adhering to its 
purpose till the height is attained. It then 
rests up there and drinks in the scenes above, 
about, below, and throws back to the strag- 
glers up an exhilarant call, and bends over the 
brink to give a firm helping hand to them, who, 
clinging among the crags, have a few more 
crevices to thrust fingers and toes in carefully, 
ivell as they can, holding on, straining up, to 
get on top to do likewise. 

In the other, the mind dreams, dreams soft- 
ly; wanders along and wanders; and in the 
quietness and restfulness of the scenes, it takes 
in the soft sweet thoughts of life, and dallies 



224 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


with them, fondles them till it becomes enam- 
ored with the nicer delights of the heart and 
leaps all separating distances and floats over 
every barrier, and counts all else but loss, till 
it embraces and is caressed by them. At least, 
so it had been with Tom. In the mountains, 
among their jumbled heights, jutting promon- 
tories, and wild chasms, he was a jubilate, keep- 
ing, however tired as he always was, joyfully 
to his one purpose of gold. But soon as he 
snuffed the valleys, and dwelt among the little 
hills that bordered them, the tender things of 
life asserted themselves till, as he said, lie was 
forever kissing them in the air. And so it was 
now with Virginia: his return from the valley 
was the signal of his return to the Atlantic 
States. For, as we were sitting one day in early 
autumn among the laughing hills, he said: 
“I shall leave by the next steamer for the 
Atlantic States; shall go to Kentucky first aft- 
er landing in New York.” 

I was not at all surprised when he said 
“ Kentucky first,” for when he said it he had 
open in his palm tlie locket that contained the 
little bright, quiet picture he had shown to 
us in the snow-storm among the peaks. So 
we sold the claim, divided gains, saw him 
aboard ship at San Francisco, and went again 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 225 


into the Sierras far northward, and took 
into partnership an experienced miner called 
“ Maine.” 

Though we discovered a rich placer among 
rollicking cascades and echoing forests in the 
depths of the mountains, the new environments 
somehow admitted to me hours of drearest de- 
I^ression. It must have been in one of the dark- 
est of those evil hours that I wrote to Eoth in 
New York, whither he had gone “to live for- 
ever,” he said. 

About that time insanity was busy with men’s 
brains on the gold-fields. Dissipation, and hope 
wrecked, drifting to pieces like a holiday ship 
beaten to fragments by breakers on the reefs 
to the utter surprise of the gay voyagers, had 
lashed many minds into distraught fury, and 
set them raving on the gold-fields, or pursued 
them with blighted dreams to their old Atlan- 
tic homes, and smitten them there amid the 
soft, sweet scenes. Eoth knew so much, or 
thought he did, at least he hoped so much, 
that I had often dreaded lest he should go daft. 
And at last the dread seemed to be fully real- 
ized; for, wdiile visiting a town a dozen miles 
or more from the mine to get our mail, and 
deposit the gold we had accumulated, I re- 
ceived from him the following letter: 

15 


226 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


“Neak C , New York, . 

^^Dear Quien: Crazy. Gone mad. Insane. 
Been expecting it a long time. Go to the ex- 
press-office. Come here at once. It will help 
me to see yon. Leina ’s in much grief about 
it — in perfect sympathy with me. I am too 
nervous to write. In haste, yours, 

“T. E. Eothleit.” 

After reading it I was strangely distressed 
about Both— thought it specially hard that he 
had survived the gold-field mishaps to go crazy 
so soon after he got back safely to his family 
on the Atlantic slope. But I rejoiced that he 
had mind enough left to know that he was 
crazy, and to feel concern to have me with him 
in his drear paroxysms. So I consoled myself 
while retracing the trail athwart gorge and 
mount to the distant mine. Stepping from the 
zigzag trail a few yards, I rested on the skyed 
crag that hung over the pretty town. The 
town two thousand yards from me, and many 
feet below the crag, seemed, in the transparent 
atmosphere' of the season, about to float up off 
the rocks and hills and ravines it occupied. 
Its streets appeared like mere alleys from the 
height, and the busy men appeared like small 
boys, and scarcely to move, though all astir, I 
knew; for it was “business hours,” and they 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 227 


were on the rush. Ladies appearing like little 
girls, seemed not to walk but to float away 
from cottage gates, and pause as group met 
group, then drift apart and away so slowly that 
the mind was witched as the eye noted how 
they seemed to swim apart, standing in the 
ether, so softly and slowly that many moments 
elapsed before any separating space between 
them appeared to the beholder. Not a sound 
came up to the crag from the town; so they, 
men and women, appeared to me as though the 
dead were risen and were moving, grouping, 
greeting, parting, in noiseless awe. They 
moved apparently just above the ground, for 
their feet and lower limbs were indistinguish- 
able, giving the impression that they were in 
a sea of ether, with those members under the 
surface; for not a footfall of all the many in 
view pressed the earth visibly to me. 

As I gazed they were under sudden arrest, 
as if in the moment planted in the air where 
they stood. Up, down the streets they paused 
and faced in one direction. I saw two or three, 
quicker of will than the remainder, hurrying 
like little balloons in human shape, up a street 
whitherward every one seemed now to float — 
some faster, some slower, some veering about, 
some smoothly, but all floating, not running. 


228 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


“Fire,” I thought. But as the eye swept 
from point to point of, to me, the silent but re- 
ally tumultuous town, no token of conflagra- 
tion was seen. Soon the throngs poured to- 
gether into and around a white cottage that 
crowned a hill like a smile of peace and hope; 
and I knew that there lay the motive whose 
electric spark had drawn them all to one spot. 
But I heard not the pistol-shot, nor saw from 
the crag nearer the sky the suicide in the rear 
of that pretty home, with the bullet in his 
brain, kneeling over on his face, who had 
thrilled the multitude with one thought — red- 
handed, hard, desperate death. 

Now and then an incident grates upon the 
keel of our barques, journeying the sea of life, 
and fills us with dismay as chartless reefs do 
sailors on the deep. Such a one is when a 
sensitively honorable man, as in this instance, 
lays violent hands upon his own life and bursts 
through its casket into the presence of God. 
We inquire of the horror the cause, and only 
echo answers us; answers us whose eyes pierce 
not deeper than the reddened surface, whose 
ear hears only that which is voiced. But is it 
therefore hidden from retribution’s inquest? 
And when this comes does it not often disclose 
that others’ sins set aflame his heart with the 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 229 


evil fire of despair; that others, whom he had 
implicitly trusted, had beguiled him into a sea 
of trouble, and having stolen from him every 
refuge, left him to the tempestuous, reefy, 
chasmy waves, out of sight of rescue, to leap 
madly into the depths? They may survive — 
richer, mightier grow; yet how can their glory 
foil God — turn from them the arrows of his 
justice? 


230 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

BONAPARTEAN. 



N reaching the camp I said noth- 
ing to Mack about Roth’s insan- 
ity; was averse to break to him 
the grewsome tidings of his old 
comrade and special friend. He 
seemed, too, to be particularly reticent that 
night, and Avhenever I awoke he was sitting up, 
and threw quick, searching glances upon me. 
His voice had an anxious yet soothing tone 
when he spoke to me that was not its wont, 
for it was habitually an exhilarant voice that 
conveyed laughing gas. He constantly faced 
me, too; was never at my side as aforetime; 
and in the morning I remarked that his pallet 
was untumbled. If he slept at all during the 
night it was a nodding sleep from the camp- 
stool opposite me. He proposed that we should 
not mine that day, but rest and stroll, as he 
had brought on vertigo the day before by over- 
work. It was ever an easy task, Roth always 
said, to persuade me not to work; so we lounged 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 231 


away the slow, sunny hours till noon, when 
Wyche L., Koth’s cousin, came to us from 
beyond a mountain eastward. He had come 
a few years before, fresh from the college- 
halls of New York, to California soon as he 
had been graduated; had returned to his old 
home, and was now back again on the gold- 
fields. Skylarking is hardly descriptive of him, 
but enough so to suggest the keennes^ with 
which he discerned, enjoyed, and ministered to 
the absurdities that everywhere in the gold- 
fields bul)bled to the surface. He and Mack 
interviewed each other with a letter between 
them, apart from me, after which I somehow 
felt that they constantly and with kindly con- 
cern watched me. If I stepped to the mine to 
have a word with Maine, who dug and scooped 
and shoveled, visitors or no visitors, as though 
he thought the gold was smothering to death 
under the rocks, they followed me, noting 
each movement and expression of face and 
eyes. If I went to the spring, they kejjt me 
in sight. If I entered the conversation, they 
sadly glanced and blinked to each otlier the 
while. So I scaled the mountain to see the 
sun jostle his wiieels against the coast-range 
and plunge over into the sea out of sight; for 
I tired of their surveillance. They were soon 


232 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


at my side, with polite pleasantries as excuse 
for joining me. 

It occurred to me that then was the oppor- 
tune time to inform them that Koth had gone 
crazy; and I did so. Mack looked bewildered, 
and sadder by far than I had ever observed in 
him before; and Wyche appeared bewildered 
too, and strangely sobered. And I gave Eoth’s 
letter to Mack and asked him to read it out to 
us. After reading he dropped it on the ground, 
and his sorrowing eyes fell on my face and 
leaped to Wyche’s in startled inquiry. Wyche 
was deeply dejected, ^and I began to regret hav- 
ing given them the tidings, when AVyche took 
a fit. He seemed to be in much pain — about 
to burst. He tossed about on the brown grass, 
bit his lips, pressed his sides with his hands, 
dug his heels in the turf, rolled over; his cheeks 
swelled; his eyes shone, twinkled, danced as 
they fell upon me; and he surrendered himself 
to the fit that convulsed him. We were in a 
few minutes about to bleed him with a ^mall 
knife, but a wrenching spasm twitched him 
from between us, as his paroxysm whirled him 
to and fro in a boisterous wave of ridiculous 
laughter. But as he tossed to me the following 
letter Mack caught it away sadly as I was 
reaching for it, his kind face full of confusion. 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 233 


“ Konsense, Mack, nonsense! ” lie exclaimed. 

He ’ll not mind Koth. They are both crazy. 
Give him the letter.” 

And so he did, and here it is: 

“ , New York, . 

^'Dear Mack and WycJie: I wish I were there 
to help you with Quien S. I know you are 
troubled to know what to do with him in his 
insanity. You should have written to me about 
it. I have only heard of it by a letter from 
himself, and I infer froni it that his chief de- 
lusion— and many other evil delusions always 
mix with that —is that he is haunted by an as- 
sassin: a sick whim of his dazed intellect, of 
course. While with him I had much ado 
to keep him in his right mind, if he had 
any such. He was my old partner, you know ; 
he can’t help his brains, and I cannot but feel 
very deep concern for him. Take the best care 
of him for my sake. 

“ Usually you may do any thing with him 
by kindness; but if this fails, and you are care- 
ful, you may readily scare him into meas- 
ures. He has at times unwittingly helped me 
out of trouble, and, somehow, I like him for 
old toil’s sake on your coast. Boys, stick to 
him. Do n’t let him be taken to the lunatic 
asylum at Stockton. I can cure him” (he had 


234 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


but one cure for every ill— tincture of arnica). 
“Decoy him to the nearest town, and keep 
him in the best rooms of the hotel till one or 
both of you can start to New York with him 
by the November steamer. Spare neither your- 
selves nor money to make him comfortable. 
I’ll foot all bills. Have remitted to him by 
express enough, I hope ; ought to have directed 
it to Mack, who will please get it and use for 
Q.” (Mack had got it.) “Don’t chain him; 
bind him with soft ropes if he rages. Do n’t 
for the world hurt him. I w^ould prefer to suf- 
fer half death than he should have a needless 
bruise. 

“He nursed me when I had the small-pox, 
he called it; it was nothing but the nettle-rash, 
really, that developed under his treatment hito 
a universal splotch of overgrown pimples, and 
pitted up my face a little” (it would have pit- 
ted him in a thousand spots but for me), “but 
it’s all the same; he thought it was the small- 
pox. And, besides, I was about to be killed 
once, and he, accidentally no doubt, got mixed 
up in the melee, and trying to run out knocked 
over the man who was sticking his bowie into 
me, tripped one of the others who was pummel- 
ing me, and butted or got the other down some- 
how, so I easily managed the crowd. On some 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 235 


other occasions he did me similar small fa- 
Yors. 

“ I would come for him myself, but Leina 
dissuades me, and says ‘ she would make the 
voyage for no such fool.’ Boys, if you will be 
kind to him, as you would to me in his condi- 
tion, and bring him to New York yourselves, I 
shall always thank you. 

“Poor, simple-hearted fellow! He was try- 
ing to make money enough to return to the 
States and marry — I forget whom; some sim- 
pleton, doubtless. I suspect he has been chis- 
eled out of every thing. He was never better 
adapted to business than a Digger Indian is 
to translate the Odes of Horace, or construe 
the language and brain of Goethe, and is the 
worst of financiers; hence his insanity. 

“But I will meet you at the Astor House 
1st of December. Yours, etc., 

“T. K. Kothleit.” 

When I had read this letter, lying on the 
turf propped upon my elbow, my right ear 
clutched in my hand, Wyche had dismissed 
the affair from his mind, but Mack still 
watched for insane symptoms, evidently; 
though he had never thought of one in me till 
he had received the letter the day before, and 
sent Wyche word to come to the mine. But 


236 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


he at least repressed his doubts, and we re- 
turned the money to Koth with some exquisite 
specimens for his wife and children. 

That night at the camp-fire California 
“church-going,” among much else, was dis- 
cussed, and Wyche said: 

“Not long after I got to this country I at- 
tended a church service. The minister, in 
some illustrative paragraph, said : ‘ The First 
Napoleon was greatest of the Caesars. Had he 
been like Washington, too great for a palace, 
too patriotic for a crown, his name could 
scarcely be peered on the roll of the ages. 
His genius mocked kings trampled thrones, 
and raised France to be a power so great as 
to require allied Europe in arms to repulse her. 
Nor was it till the monarchs knew that his 
ashes were urned in the rock in the ocean’s 
heart tliat their crowns ceased to tremble.’ 

“A Frenchman rose to his feet, stepped into 
the aisle, paused a moment, marched to the 
pulpit, placed a coin from his thin purse upon 
the tablet, and fixing his eyes in the preach- 
er’s, said: ‘Napoleyoo?^ le Grande! Fransr/y.' 
Napoleyoo;?.'.' There, give you that; go now 
git you more. Napoleyoo ?? ! ! ! ’ 

“And the thrilled old Frank, leaving a Na- 
poleon on the pulpit-tablet, marched down the 


CALIFOBmA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 237 


aisle out of the church like a soldier of ‘the 
old guard,’ eyes flashing as though a volcano 
of Yives Napoleon were rumbling in his 
heart. I felt like the Fourth of July was pres- 
ent cheering the old Gaul, and was ready to 
lock arms with him, and march down the aisle, 
America and France together. 

“Some months after, I asked the preacher 
if he had met the Frenchman since. ‘ Yes,’ he 
r(^plied ; ‘ as I stepped from the church to the 
sidewalk one Sunday afternoon, he was passing 
up the street by zigzags. On meeting me he 
paused, stood erectly, still as a statue a few mo- 
ments, touched his cap in military salute style, 
and reeled on, his eye flaming as if he could 
leap through St. Helena. I intended, on op- 
portunity, to return to him the coin, if it could 
be done with proper regard to his sensibilities; 
for I noticed at the time he gave it it was all 
his purse held, and I thought he was keeping 
it as a memorial of the France of his early 
years. But as he passed me, veering to and fro 
across the sidewalk like a ship lurching be- 
tween waves, I knew it was no time for a nice 
parley. For then he had not only French fire 
in him (which may God bless), but hell-fire — • 
that is, brandy — from which good Lord deliver 
ns.’ ” 


238 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


Mack, whose veins carried a strain of 
French, from his Creole mother, said; 

“Napoleon’s name will live wherever France 
has a son worthy her motherhood. It is mag- 
netic. Here, with many years and continents 
and seas between him and France, a banished 
Frenchman lashed by broken fortunes and 
hope’s failures, springs to his feet at its men- 
tion, makes of his last coin a thank-offering in 
its honor, and repeats it proudly in the very 
chancel of God’s temple, amid the homage of 
worshipers. It is the synonym of the people’s 
governor, the people’s choice against heredita- 
ry monarchy. The fires of liberty are in it, 
and the France that he reclaimed will never 
down at a king’s bidding for any long period. 
Her licentiousness and infidelity are dying, 
and as she drinks in the pure life of Christian 
faith and principle she will rise to Christian 
liberty and ecpiality. Her sentiment is the 
American sentiment, and their eagles have 
been in sympathy since hers brought to ours, 
in its conflict with kingly tyranny, her diplo- 
macy and treasure and blood. Were Napo- 
leon living now, he would be the ^D'esident, 
not the emperor, of the French. The name 
Napoleon, will survive that of Bourbon. The 
name Napoleon will survive that of emperor.” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FILED SCENES. 239 


CHAPTER XXVllI. 

WITH SONGFUL WINDS AMONGST THE BOWING 
FLO WEBS. 


KNOW not which was merriest 
in camp tl^at night because of 
Tom’s letter’s estimate of me. 
Mack, especially after his Na- 
poleonic rocket, seemed to vie 
with Wyche and Maine in helping me to re- 
member it. And you may have been waiting 
for some token of my “feeling” about it. 
Feeling. Well, feeling. But you know Tom. 
Yet I think he believed about as he wrote. 
But when the stars blinked midnight to us 
from their swinging beds we were all awake. 
For Maine, who had snored a solo an hour and 
more, seemed as fresh as we who had idled 
most of the day. 

The smoke from an Indian camp floated over 
a ridge and settled in the ravines north of us; 
the rivulet leaped over the little falls, but was 
too dry to make much fuss about it; and the 
donkey waking the echoes, crawled nearer the 
fire and, lying down, w'atched us pretty much 




240 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


as a fine old mastiff would have done; while I, 
in memory of Tom and the brown donkey, took 
him a loaf of bread, and staid by him till he 
ate it. I returned to the group as Wyche said: 

“Tom, however, is not alone in egotism, by 
many. They are met on campus, platform, 
bench, in the temple of justice, in that of mer- 
cy, on the deck at sea; almost everywhere they 
appear whose god is egotism. You refuse to 
resent the absurdities of the god because of 
the virtues amid which unhappily he is throned. 
With such a one whatever good is wrought or 
evil avoided, he did it, however trifling the part 
he enacted. Nothing is that he could not have 
bettered, and to all that is his connection there- 
with imparts all of worth that attaches. He 
looks up at the capitol’s dome; it is an archi- 
tectural marvel, but not before he beheld it. 
The look he cast to it invested it with the pen- 
cilings of genius, and, he rather thinks, built 
and paid for it. He is drowned in the surf; 
you bear him to the strand, recall him to life; 
he saved himself — just then had conquered the 
wave wlien you uselessly grasped him. You 
find him unknown, herald him to fame, make 
for him opportunity, cluster honors upon him ; 
he did it himself. He is as oblivious of your 
handiwork in his fortunes as the world is of 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 241 


that of editors in supplying, directing, and 
wreathing its brain with honors. 

“If he speaks, the eloquence of Demos- 
thenes is eclipsed, that of Webster a baseless 
vision. If he battles, though it be with a wisp 
of cobwebs, the day was the bloodiest, the slain 
countless. His definition of something is him- 
self; of nothing, the world without him. You 
do not disturb his conceit by bursting his bub- 
ble; yet you feel that egotism, though set in a 
coronet, tarnishes the brilliance and repels like 
a serpent coiled among flowers. Eetaining 
your attachment for the man, you excuse him 
by laughing at the god. ‘ That god. Egotism ! ’ 
you say, and forgive his assumacy.” 

“You could better tolerate him,” said Maine, 
“if he were satisfied with self-puffing. But 
he as certainly detracts from others as he ex- 
aggerates himself. He outlines his own pict- 
ure on a large scale, and much overcolors it; 
and draws others’ pictures in a cramped scale, 
and much overshades them.” 

“ Taking others’ pictures is a delightful art,” 
said Mack, “ if numbers devoted to it are good 
evidence. Nearly all are artists in this line, 
each esteeming himself ‘an old master.’ If the 
pictures they paint with lip and pen are ‘true 
to life,’ this world hath in it saints but one, 
16 


242 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


devils all beside; nobody’s great, good, but 
one, and lie guides the pencil. All! here the 
rub is. Egotism, or a god like him, inspires 
the artist to shade deeply every picture save 
his own, and this the vision of his own fancy. 
But as he too is painted by another, we will 
find him grouped somewhere, a scowling rep- 
robate like all the rest. Only if man had made 
man, what a wonderful piece of mechanism he 
would have been! But as God made him, and 
in his own likeness, he’s but a meager beast 
at best. True enough, he is much marred by 
the devil, and himself far bent from the origi- 
nal design; but surely he has not been defaced 
of all the touch divine. They must see him 
through a glass, darkly, or their pictures would 
have more light, less shadow, except when ex- 
tremes are brought upon the easel.” 

The points of fire that, at intervals, had been 
coming this side the ridge from the Indian 
camp, like magnified points of stars thrust 
through the fissured ravines nearest its top, 
had widened and lengthened and run round, 
and met in the narrower spaces here and there, 
till it appeared like many islands floating in est- 
uaries of flame. And the wind, setting in from 
us thither, pushed the encircling flames rapid- 
ly upward till the tops of the ridge appeared 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 243 


like illuminated cones of rock and plant sink- 
ing in the roaring billows of the burning sea. 
We beheld the unusual spectacle with bated 
breath. And as from her lair a brown bear 
with her cubs started this way -and that, and 
climbed to the summit, and watched the encir- 
cling flames on all sides, otir hearts hushed' 
beating in the concern we felt for the poor 
beasts. But a few moments decided the anx- 
ious mother; and placing her paw caressingly 
upon each of her twins for an instant, she 
turned down to a point where the fiery estuary 
was narrowest, and, lying down, rolled over it, 
followed by the imitative cubs. An involunta- 
ry shout rang from our throats as we recog- 
nized the grandness of motherhood displayed 
in the bear. And as just below the circle of 
heat she paused on a broad, fire-lit rock in 
safety, and licked and fondled and played with 
the cubs, the soft, sweet scenes of mother’s 
love and delighted tenderness in trouble and 
in joy touched our hearts; and as, presently, she 
pierced the unburning chapparal nearing the 
little stream a hundred yards below us, the 
cubs about her, huzza after huzza greeted her; 
and she turned down into the cool gulch, and 
was safe again. When the conversation that 
the scene and incident had interrupted was re- 


244 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


sumed, the voices were softer, as though out 
of the wildness of flame and beast had come a 
sprite of gentleness, imparting to us a rever- 
ence for every thing that God had made. And 
Wyche said: 

“There is but one ‘Master’ whose pictures 
are without a mistake — God. All lights and 
shades he paints us in are faultless; and we do 
well to receive them without question. In him 
is a skill that, discerning our rippling peni- 
tence and faith, transfers us to the canvas so 
robed in these that our pictures glow with joy 
for heaviness, light for shadow, the hue of life 
for that of death, and yet is true to life. 

“But of no other is that he paints of you 
true because he paints it. His, at best, is de- 
fective skill, blemishing its pictures with its 
own imperfections.” 

“ Man is unfitted to paint man,” said Maine. 
“ He will denounce if life be assassinated, yet 
thrust the treacherous blade into its reputa- 
tion. He is emulous of good, but not when 
good is evil spoken of. He is ambitious of 
success, but accounts this applause; and to 
gain it will appropriate another’s deserving or 
minify it, and magnify his fault. He will ap- 
prove a character, yet assails it if so wags the 
world. If Christ bear the cross, not the crown, 


CALIFOliKIA GOLD-FIELD SCEFES. 245 


he ’ll jeer him without the city, and jeer him 
for a devil, though he is God. He discerns 
virtue, yet is so selfish he will detract from it 
to attract to himself, or dash the gem to pieces, 
lest, himself unadorned by it, it should adorn 
another. His friendship is graceful when to 
bestow it is profitable to him, but to stay one 
struggling with adversities and contempts is 
too strange a fire for him to warm at.” 

‘‘Yet,” said Wyche, “with all his devilism 
there is something God-like in man; but it re- 
quires God to bring it out. An angel would 
become impatient with him ; a fiend would fall 
away from the task in ecstasy, and say, ‘ He ’s 
good enough for me; very like my brother;’ 
man would caricature him by distortion and 
embellishment; only God sees him as he is, 
and is adequate to accurately picture one so 
lapsed, yet so advanced. Dipping his pencil 
in the blood of Christ, he blushes sick hu- 
manity with so sweet virtues that it shines on 
the verge of hell like a scintillation of heaven, 
eiilights for the skies, and spheres there. The 
lip is hesitant to drop the blood of Jesus often 
lest the pearl of fathomless merit ‘ fall among 
swine.’ But who that notes the soft lines, nice 
lights, and pure shades with which that pur- 
ple Pearl touches man but has his numbed be- 


246 CALIFOViNtA GOLD-FIKLD SCENES. 


ing startled into reverential amaze, aspires to 
be vivified by it, and utilized to purity and 
good?” 

Maine here said something about the pul- 
pit’s neglect of Jesus, its familiarity with phi- 
losophies and oppositions of science, its unfa- 
miliarity with Biblicism ; and expressed him- 
self so pertinently, yet so considerately, that 
we were about to lose our picture topic. But 
Mack woke up as out of a dream, and said: 

“The art of taking others’ likenesses has 
tripped down to us, petted by clanging ages, 
from gray antiquity. More than thirty centu- 
ries ago an old Arabic papyrus was unrolled 
before the eager eyes of sages, whose words, 
like floods of honey, and anon like floods of 
aloe, leaj^ed down the channel of time, are* 
leaping still, telling of a picture painted by 
three renowned artists of this school. Many 
would be familiar with this scroll but for a 
malady that has preyed upon the priestly line 
that, as Maine says, ‘hath cankered the sur- 
plice and nearly eaten out of it the image and 
superscription of Jesus, and the word whose 
entrance giveth light.’ It says: 

“ There was a man in the land of Uz whose 
substance was very great. Tlie young men 
and the aged, the princes and the nobles, rev- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 247 


erenced liim. When the ear heard him then 
it blessed him, and the eye when it saw him 
gave witness to him; because he delivered the 
poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him 
that had none to help him ; and caused the wid- 
ow’s heart to sing for joy. He was eyes to the 
blind, and feet was he to the lame; and a fa- 
ther to the poor, though he had a great family 
of his own to provide for. 

“ He waited not for suffering to report itself 
ere he relieved it, but the cause he knew not 
he searched out. He brake the jaws of the 
wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth. 
He neither feared a great multitude, nor did 
the contempt of families terrify him. Nor re- 
joiced he at the destruction of him that hated 
him, nor walked with vanity, nor hasted to de- 
ceit. Unto him men gave ear, kept silent at 
his counsel, waited for his words as for the 
rain; for righteousness clothed him, and his 
judgment was a robe and a diadem. He sat 
chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one 
that coinforteth the mourners. 

“But adversity came to him. His children 
in a day suddenly died, and all his fortunes 
vanished. An evil disease gat hold upon him, 
and he lay desolate in ashes. Tlien fell away 
from him his friends, except his wife, and 


248 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


she, in sympathy’s delirium, bade him curse 
God and die. They that were younger than 
he, whose fathers he would have disdained to 
have sit with the dogs of his hock, had him in 
derision. They who were driven forth from 
among men, and cut up mallows and juniper 
roots for their meat, and brayed in the bush- 
es, children of fools, viler than the earth, made 
him their song and their by-word, and spared 
not to spit upon him. 

“On the right rose the youth; they pushed 
away his feet, they marred his path, they set 
forward his calamities. Terrors turned upon 
him and pursued his soul. His bones were 
pierced in the night season, and his sinews 
took no rest. His bowels boiled and rested 
not, and his skin grew black upon him, while 
his bones burned with heat; for Satan kin- 
dled fires within him, and without burned him 
with reproach, until he became brother to 
dragons. And his heart also was turned to 
mourning, and his organ into the voice of them 
that weep. 

“Then came the three princes, his friends, 
to take his picture, and, uniting their skill, 
produced a portraiture of him so perfect, they 
thought, they hung it in the Hall Inspiration. 
Its expression was irreverent folly, cruel op- 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 249 


pression, treachery, selfishness, hypocrisy. And 
this was the title they wrote upon it: ‘Job, 
great in wickedness, in iniquity infinite.’ 

“Then the Almighty appeared. The sol- 
emn mountains laughed, the little hills skipped 
for joy, and the glad sunshine knelt down 
with the songful winds amongst the bowing 
flowers, delightedly chanting Alleluia with 
happy earth and the shouting sky. So he too 
looked for good, but evil came; waited for 
light, but came darkness; and he coiled down 
lower in dust and ashes, and said: ‘Behold, I 
am vile ! ’ and scraping himself with a ijotsherd, 
wept. His three painters passed by and said: 
‘Aha! aha! ’ But God came even unto him, and 
stooped down and touched him, and said: ‘ My 
seiwant. Job, there is none like him in the 
earth; a perfect and an upright man, one that 
feareth God and escheweth evil, and still he 
holdethfast his integrity. Pray for theni^ for my 
wrath is kindled against them to deal with 
them after their folly.’ And in his black woe 
he prayed for his friends, and the Lord turned 
the captivity of Job while he prayed; also the 
Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. 

“In the meanwhile Truth, while passing 
through the art-gallery of Hall Inspiration, 
beheld his picture placed there by his three 


250 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


friends, and, blushing at the caricature, went 
to heaven’s portfolio, and brought thence the 
portrait she had painted of him, and hung it 
abovo^-the other without note or comment. 
Bepairing to the hall one day with beautiful 
Charity to return it to the portfolio as heav- 
en’s favorite, she found it nailed by the Mas- 
ter of assemblies immovably to the wall, and 
this inscription in the handwriting of God: ‘A 
perfect and an upright man.’ And they bowed 
their graceful forms, and worshiped God who 
judgeth righteous judgment. 

“ ‘ Truth,’ said Charity, ‘ we do err who 
judge by appearances. The prince of Uz insist- 
ed that his friends were picturing him inaccu- 
rately, and I whispered as much oft in their 
ears. But the evil they thought they painted, 
and called it after the perfect man.’ 

“ * Charity,’ replied Truth, ‘ to err is com- 
mon with man. If there is any better in erring 
it is found in lighting, not shading, a picture. 
Let us, as we go from this j^ure hall, in its 
loving inspiration persuade men not to sur- 
mise evil of their neighbor, nor to think more 
highly of themselves than they ought to, 
and so avoid taking inaccurate portraits. 
Failing this, let us persuade the neighbor not 
to be distressed by their caricatures, but to 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 251 


stand in his lot, his proper character, re- 
gardless of their fond conceits, till the end 
be. 

“And they passed forth on their mission.” 



252 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

THIS KING OF THE WEST — ON THE SHAPE CAME 
CLINGING. 



YCHE parted with ns the next 
day. To what fate he w^ent we 
cannot say. It was onr last meet- 
ing. The speed with which the 
tumults of those days whirled 
persons apart, and forever hid them from each 
other, was like that with which Norway’s 
mythic sea-whirl swallows the boatman and 
his boat to be seen no more. And to wdiat 
numbers and wonders the gold-field maelstrom 
sucked under its unfortunates is a story that 
perhaps others will partly unfold, and there 
will be wizzardry in it. From friend hidden 
to stranger revealed was an oft-told tale in the 
golden phantasms that hurled us together and 
tossed us apart in the ruder days of the Cali- 
fornia gold-hunt. 

Maine was energetic, saving, yet generous 
and good-humored. He loathed nothing but an 
Indian, and despised nothing but a negro, for 



CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 25 ^ 


whose freedom lie was ready to argue when- 
ever he could do so without loss of time from 
gold-gathering. He would not endure a darky’s 
cookery — always sweeter to Mack and me than 
any other — and contact with him his honest 
abolition heart abhorred. When we specially 
hungered for something good to eat, and called 
in black Sam, who said he was “from Mas- 
sysip,” and pretended to mine, with others, 
half a mile below us, and gave him the free- 
dom of our larder to get up the best feast he 
could, Maine would spend the day down in the 
claim. 

When dinner was ready on such occasions, 
old Sam’s “Halloo! ” would rollick through the 
mine, and though Maine would neither heed 
it nor our “ Come, let ’s to that feast,” he nev- 
er demurred to the program nje. “ Every one 
to his taste,” he v/ould say, and work away 
contentedly. At first when we came without 
Maine and sat down to the washed log and 
scoured tins, and savory dishes of old Sam’s 
skill, he would say, “Whar’s Mas Maine?” 

Mack answered, “ This is his fast-day.” 

The old shine grunted a disapproval, but 
said nothing. The next time, the same ques- 
tion and answer drew from him the comment: 
“He cust turrer day, an’ cussin’ an’ fastin’ 


254 CALIFOliNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


cloan ’long togedder.” It was duly reported 
to Maine, with such flourishes as Mack thought 
flt to improvise. 

About the fifth occasion of the sort he asked 
no questions for several minutes, but sat near 
upon a stump watching with great satisfaction 
as morsel after morsel played hide-and-seek 
between our lips. As he filled our tins with 
the third pour of his delicious coffee, he said: 
“Wha’ dat Mister Chunk; he doan come eat 
he dinner ? ” 

“Who?” queried we. 

“ Dat chunk you partner wid,” he answered. 

“O,” replied Mack, “he’s gouging a speck 
of gold out of a piece of cement, and is afraid 
it will jump out and hide if all leave the mine. 
But, Sam, he ’s more like the ridge-pole of a 
cabin than like a chunk.” 

“No, sah,” he answered; “he like nutting 
dat ’longs to a cabin. He like de ’ceevin’ 
chunk ’cross de by-yore; you step on ’im, thinks 
yer gwine ’cross safe; he role over, drap you 
in de water fur drown. He think nigger 
skin too blarck fur ’im to eat arter. Nigger 
heart whiter ’n his’n, an’ he skin ain’t much 
blarcker.” 

Here Maine came round the tent corner. 
Old Sam never budged, but a queer grin 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 255 


wrinkled liis face as he said: “You bofe better 
eat dem brown pieces; he done mighty par- 
fect.” 

I said, “ Fix Chunk’s place.” 

And Maine, whose face glinted with pleas- 
antry, having overheard Sam’s comments, 
christened his new name. Chunk, by which he 
went thereafter in the diggings, by a meal that 
would have done credit to Tom in the early 
stage of his nostalgic attack. Sam seemed 
never so happy as when attending to our 
feasts, and always said, “I charges nuffin.” 
But Chunk said the reasan was he knew that 
was the way to double wages. He often came 
unbidden to the camp, never unwelcomed, and 
went away with a glad step, for he went full- 
handed, and I may add full-hearted. For at 
least Mack appeared to know precisely how to 
cheer and fill him with sunshine, and yet 
seemed never to try to do so. And Chunk, 
too, learned how to make him glad, but often 
said, “I wouldn’t live in a land of niggers for 
the hull South.” 

Already the hoar-frost was shivering upon 
every green thing and every damp spot. The 
heights woke up of mornings with veils of va- 
por tucked around their heads; the slopes 
smoked with heavy mists; and along the rivu- 


256 ■ CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


let’s cliasmy course, and up each gorge, clouds 
of fog tottered slowly, to melt away in the 
clear ether nearer heaven. So we knew gruff 
winter would soon build citadels of ice, and 
spread thick wastes of snow about us. But 
the phantom of gold sung to us out of the 
mists and wintry signals as musically as 
though April’s buds were popping about us, 
and spelled us to the spot. 

Fifty feet above the streamlet the stubborn 
granite jutted widely out from the mountain- 
side; and Maine and I having agreed to spend 
the winter there. Mack, before leaving, helped 
us drift a large room under the granite. We 
closed the front with heavy pickets, hedged it 
with deeply planted cedars, and corded fire- 
wood, and stored it with provisions. 

Mack bid us good-by. But he said, as he 
stood in the trail ready to start: “I will write 
from San Francisco, then from New Orleans. 
I hope you shall be as happy and successful 
as my heart wishes, and as my life with you 
both has been pleasant.” And he turned down 
the trail, and was hidden by the jungle. 

Maine said, as his eyes followed him out of 
sight: ‘‘Before the associations of this copart- 
nership, I felt that the Northern and the South- 
ern man were the contrary the one of the oth- 


CALlFOliXIA aOLD-FIFLI) SCENES. 257 


er, each the other’s reverse, no harmony, nor 
could be. But these are only prejudices — hid- 
den rocks fretting the waters of the heart that 
should be blown out, or sunk through to Chi- 
na. Y/hy will the heart be a jagged-bottomed 
archipelago where counter-currents dash, in- 
stead of the quiet deep where we float with a 
sense of security and peace? Mack’s a world 
of good feeling and pure principle; quick, but 
too courteous to be on the -offensive.” 

November floundered carelessly upon the 
mountains. Its glad suns, its cool moons, its 
quiet and holiday airs, its changing leaves 
and falling, its occasional mists, its Indian- 
summery warmths interrupted now and then 
by the winds upon rampages, and soughing 
or whistling afterward, as the humor was, 
filled us with a diversity of emotions as de- 
lightful as were the physical sensations they 
imparted. And in the mine a richer vein had 
been cut, and we were pursuing its golden run 
and catching its golden drops in shovel and 
pan and girdle, and storing them in a secret- 
ing-vault convenient of defense, if not defiant 
of discovery. And so we toiled in the glow of 
hope realized, and often in the zest forgot 
breakfast; and dug and washed and laid by in 
the sun to gleam and dry, the little and larger 
17 


258 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


nuggets, till high noon laughed at us from the 
dun skies; a hurried dinner, and then till twi- 
light nodded into night, when we supped and 
slept to awake with the light and repeat the 
days that had just passed. But any old miner 
could have told us “it could not last;” either 
we would give out, or the vein. In this in- 
stance it was both. But in the three weeks our 
vault had received nearly five hundred ounces 
on deposit, and we were now tranquilly hunt- 
ing the vein again. 

As Maine scaled the steep with a bucket of 
water one noon to the narrow belt of plateau 
that clung about our granite room, a herd of 
deer leaped from near our hedge, and fleeing 
along the mountain-side a few hundred yards, 
browsed as if oblivious of us. He reported 
that an Indian tribe was gathering at the mine, 
and would break things to pieces, he feared. 
But a glance revealed that there were but 
twenty or thirty of the forest kings, and these 
not bent on mischief. One of them lounged 
up to the tent, and said: “Whizkee, tarn, 
coot.” 

Maine replied by showing him an empty 
bottle. He smelled it and said with emphasis: 
“No smell; whizkee not, tam. No want ’em.” 

And as lie turned away, Maine said: “And 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 259 


SO this king of the West has taken on two 
touches of Anglo-American civilization — pro- 
fanity and love of whisky. How rapid the 
spread of vice! how^ easily, as to it born, the 
heart gives it bed and board!” 

California appeared to grow bottles in those 
days. They were met with eveiywhere. The 
towns, highways, trails, plains, valleys, hidden 
fastnesses, peaks, trees, were sprinkled w’ith 
bottles. If Humboldt had delayed his “ Cos- 
mos” till then, he likely would have written: 

“The peculiarity of this section of the earth 
is its chief fruit, b. bottles, which crop out 
upon its diversified surface in vast quantities 
and many varieties; odor, whisky. Occupa- 
tions, filling and emptying bottles. The in- 
habitants are industrious; day and night they 
may be seen lying, sitting, squatting, stand- 
ing, in houses, on roads and trails, on path- 
less plains and mountains, on peak-tops, in 
abysses, holding the big ends of bottles toward 
the sky, small ends growing to their lips, their 
throats gurgling, swallows in lively commo- 
tion. I saw some of the population otherwise 
employed. Instance, Maine and his partner. 
But they had bottles, empty. Inference, bot- 
tles here grow to human lips; fall when 
empty; many fall, almost instantly; replaced 


2G0 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


by larger ones, if possible. At Bottletown, 
back in the Sierras, is a great pine whose cap 
bud is a bottle — bottom up, of course. Query: 
Do the very trees here drink whisky? Name 
of section suggested: Bottellas Infinitas.” 

We directed the Indians to the deer. And 
immediately each red man, with bow and arrow, 
glided up a ravine to be in position when the 
herd should dash down it; for one had been 
sent to turn them thither. Two of the startled 
creatures w^ere mortally wounded by the clum- 
sy arrows of the red bowmen, and fell on the 
opposite mountain, whence, amid many genu- 
flections, the overjoyed Indians hurried with 
the carcases into wilder gloom among the loft- 
ier heights northward. And as they dipped 
behind a spur beyond view, Maine exclaimed, 
“ What is uncultured man but a wonderful or 
a ridiculous beast?” 

The snow had come again, and its leaps and 
falls and somersaults and gyratory recoils and 
tumbles over the Avhitened world about us 
made us to rejoice that our drift for gold had 
led us into a tunnel, where we could toil un- 
hindered by its thickening tempest for awhile. 
But soon it beat us out of that by closing its 
mouth and snowing it under, and freezing 
down upon it and every thing, in thick, vast, 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 261 


wavy folds, as though the world had emptied 
a century of its cotton crop about us, and the 
fleecy thing were stunned with wonder at the 
“tumble” it had had at last, and were dy- 
ing here amid groaning forests, and the soft 
notes of its child-flakes coming to rest upon 
its bosom in the mighty stretch of frozen 
jungle. 

To-night the sky had cleared. Moon and 
stars, and the spaces of blue between them, 
seemed to be throwing down upon white- 
robed earth irrepressible congratulations for 
the simple purity of her dress, and in their 
rayed joys and earth’s white light objects in 
the thin air appeared strange and bewitching 
to the eye. Maine had gone from the tent for 
an armtul of kindling he had prepared for 
morning, or midnight uses on demand, and 
called me out to notice a man on the mount- 
ain-side opposite the camp. He was in three 
Imndred feet of us, though he would have to 
come as many yards to reach us. The gait, 
air, shape, size, stride, motion were Pike’s, and 
I said, “ Pike’s ghost.” 

Maine glanced at me keenly. I think Tom’s 
letter came back to him then, and he thought 
it was true as it said “ Crazy; ” but it said also, 
“He can’t help his brains;” nor I couldn’t. 


26 ‘^ CALJFORNlA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


But on the shape came, clinging there to an 
iced sappling, and there to a jutting iced rock, 
and there sliding, and then slipping about 
but not falling; and now it stood and threw 
an eager look across the chasm to us, and 
said, “Is Quien over thar?” 

I had a thought of denying my name — the 
voice was Pike’s; but I answered readily 
enough for so cold a night: “Yes. Cross just 
above where you stand, if you do stand.” 

But, with his old-time daring, he skated 
down to the rivulet’s bed just where he was, 
where I met him to show him, politely as pos- 
sible, the best way up to our room in the rock. 
He looked at me closely with the old-time look 
a moment in the moonshine when w^e got to- 
gether on the stream’s frozen, sliivering face, 
and said: “It’s you, sartin; nothin’ onbeauti- 
fuller in natur’ ’cept Tom.” 

It was Pike, soul and body; and I began to 
think, “May be it’s the resurrection coming 
on; ” but he grasped me by the arm like a vise, 
yet his hand trembled too, and his eyes were 
misty withal, as he said : “ I ’ve come a long way 
ter shake your hand, for poor Backet’s sake. 
Tom gin me your pictur’ rnore’n a year ago, 
when he were gittin onto the steamer fur the 
States. It’s you, I know.” 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


263 


“ Yes,” said I,- “I believe it is, is, now. Come 
up to the camp.” And lie nearly carried me 
up the steep. 

He toasted himself before the fire, precisely 
as I had seen Pike do many times; every feat- 
ure, the entire physique, manner, tone, lan- 
guage, glance, smile, was Pike from under the 
cairn. “It’s Pike,” I thought again. But I 
asked him if he and Racket were kin. 

“Kin?” he said; “yes; Racket and me's the 
same."’^ Here the pause was a period, and 
Maine glanced at me questioningly ; but he add- 
ed in a soft melody of voice: “ Leastwise Rack- 
et and me is twin-brothers. He writ me much 
of you and Tom afore you laid him away 
under the rocks to rest till judgment. God 
bless you for it, stranger! I’ve been to his 
grave, and the manzanita hev locked hands 
over it, like the very bushes loved him. 

“I’ve got a ranch in Sacramento Valley; 
an’ you must go spend the winter with me. I 
come arter you a purpose. You ’ll friz inter 
ice here, an’ now Tom ’s gone, you are bound 
ter be the onlikeliest lump thar is. This is 
my third trip a-huntin’ on you. A fellow 
named Wyche wer tellin’ a red- whiskered 
doctor in Sacramento four days ago ’bout 
your ’ll an’ Tom’s crazy scrape; an’ I ax’d 


264 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


him e£ he knowed whar a friend could find 
yer right away. An’ he said, ‘ In twenty mile 
o’ Downieville, more or less.’ Thar a packer 
told me you were in these diggin’s some’rs, 
fur he ’d brought you a kergo o’ grub a month 
ago.” 

“You have suffered in the icy tramp,” I 
said, “but we have a supper ready for you; 
the steaming coffee will impart some warmth. 
But how did you and Tom become known to 
each other?” 

There was a smile, the humorous smile of 
Pike, on his face at the question, but his voice 
was tender as a girl’s while repeating the first 
sentence or two, as he answered: “Mother 
were alius a-lookin’ out the door in ole Mis- 
souri fur Backet ter come down the road from 
Californy; but he never come. She didn’t 
live long arter w^e got Backet’s package yer 
sent when he died; and the letter you writ 
were in her bosom when she were dyin’; an’ 
we buried it with her. So I moved west, an’ 
kept a-movin’ till I got to San Francisco. 
I’d been thar a few days, at the Tremont, 
when a fat, red-faced chap kept a pryin’ into 
my face. Wharever I were thar he were 
a-lookin’ at me like crazy. So I went inter 
the streets, but thar he were a f oiler in’ an’ 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 265 


a-starein’ at me. I went ter the wharf 
among the ships, an’ at every turn he ’d be 
a-watchin’ on me. I got tired on it, an’ went 
up to him, at last, an’ said: ‘Look a-here, 
you’ev been arter me long enough. Do you 
want any thing o’ me ? ’ 

“ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes I do. I want to know 
wdiar you come from, who you are, and all 
about you.’ 

“ ‘Waal,’ said I, ‘I come from old Missouri, 
kin take 'care of myself, an’ my name’s Jim 
Knight.’ His eye sparkled soft-like, and he 
laid his hand on my shoulder, and said: ‘It’s 
Kacket’s brother, ef it aiuH himself.’ And 
then I had to stay in his room, an’ go whar 
he went, an’ be right with' him until he got on 
the steamer fur Panama. That unor’nary chap 
loved Eacket teetotally.” 

Jim tarried with us several days, enlivened 
the hours with anecdote and song, hunted in 
the “frizen things;” and his rifle-shots were 
fatal to several deer and bears, which he salted 
down for us in a “ smokeus,” he called it, that 
he dug out for us in the back of our room. 
AVhen he left us he said: “You won’t ranch 
it with me nohow. But mind, ef ever mis- 
fortin gits the uppermost on you, manngQ to 
let me know, an’ I ’ll be with yer like light- 


2GG CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


nin’. You were clever to Kacket, an’ I wish I 
could bring yer ’tarnal joy fur it.” 

“Fraternal love,” said Maine, “lodged in a 
man’s heart is a fresh and noble grace. It has 
survived bitter experiences. It comes to cheer 
when the burdens oppress, when sorrows have 
pierced, when passions have scorched, when 
wrongs have filled with thorns of poison and 
pain. To me Joseph is in no instance greater 
than when, rendering excuse for the sin of 
his brothers against him, he takes "them out 
of their poverty and famine, and enriches and 
ennobles them. The selfish Egyptian court- 
ier, possibly, sneered at the deed and feeling; 
but the angels said, ‘ It is love — it makes him 
like God,’ and, catching fire from next the 
throne, sped from heaven and anointed him 
with immortality. Such a one rises to Jim 
Knight’s sentiment: ‘You were clever to my 
brother, and if ever misfortune gets the up- 
permost of you, manage to let me know, and 
I will be with you like lightning.’ ” 

I liked Maine the better for his fresh, bright 
words; and felt I was a boy again paddling 
about in fraternal love. It is winsome in a 
boy’s heart. It links him to his little broth- 
er’s griefs and joys, so he helps him carry 
his burdens, lifts him over the fence too high 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 267 


for him, across the stream too broad for him, 
shelters him from the tyranny of big boys, 
shares with him his fruits, fish-hooks, and 
marbles; lets him roll his hoop, spin his top, 
bounce his ball, prance his hoop-horse, play 
his Jew’s-harp, june his June-bug; and when 
he falls and hurts himself, helps him up, say- 
ing: “Never mind little brother, you’ll be 
well to-morrow, and we’ll have a jolly time 
together. '' 



268 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

BOLLS OF BEBYL AND GOLD. 


IM KNIGHT could barely have 
reached his valley home ere tlie 
storm fell so low around us that 
snow-cloud seemed to touch snow-, 
bank, and to chock down togeth- 
er into the gorge, and to mourn the fall of a 
frantic uproar of whirring, whizzing wails. 
Much of the snow melted as it fell, or was 
mingled with rain, so each ravine flowed down 
torrents to the chasm at our feet, and the riv- 
ulet fretted and foamed along its icy channel 
till it became an angry river, uprooting trees, 
knocking the clay props from under granite 
masses, and rolling them along its ragged 
course, till the grinding of the rocks, the 
splash and rumble of the floods, and the ma- 
jestic call of storm to storm were a grand 
chant that made the awful jungle appear like 
a temple of ice being set apart to the service 
of Him who ‘‘ giveth snow like wool, scattereth 
the hoar-frost like ashes, casteth forth his ice 
like morsels, sendeth out his word and melteth 





CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 269 


them, causeth the wind to blow, and the waters 
to flow.” By sundown the river had lifted its 
turbulent floods within a dozen feet of the 
plateau, and uprooted trees, whirling on the 
stream, threw out their arms and tore the 
tough cedars from the brink and swung out 
Avith them to voyage the surging waters. 
Fragments of flumes shooting by on the 
flashing current told us of troubled miners on 
tributary gulches, of hope bereaved, lost in the 
gathering of the waters. But as the cold in- 
creased we knew that every flake was freezing 
with each streamlet, and the river that thun- 
dered against our bluff had done its worst. 

The changes in the tempest were signaled 
to us by its voices. When it was sleeping, 
and only the air filled the spaces between earth 
and cloud, only the voices of the blood seemed 
to be pouring in the ear their softest melodies 
as though with them were the quietest strains 
of song that ever soothes its flow, and the 
purest that ever chastens its flames; and a qui- 
eting Avas on the senses, and in the heart too, 
how we could n’t discern, but Av^e were strange- 
ly, quietly content. 

When it was only snowing through the 
spaces, it seemed that tiny whispers, like 
SAveetest sighs perishing, just appreciable to 


270 CALIFORNIA GOLF-FIELD SCENES. 


the ear, were about us, and a rustling in the 
air, soft as the falling of downiest feathers, that 
made the ear dream that it heard the faintest 
possible echoes of far-off multitudes of tiniest 
wings, removing farther and farther, coming, 
coming nearer and nearer, now gone, now re- 
turned, coming, going, intermixing incessantly, 
never near enough to be distinctly heard, never 
far enough away to be out of hearing longer 
than a few moments. Or when it was pouring 
snow-flakes, the sound was like one imagines the 
voice of silence is when flowing softest through 
the ice-bells hanging on millions of fragile 
twigs, making music so indefinable that one 
might think it the notes of the stars singing, 
straying too far away, together fading into 
nothing. 

When it displaced the snow with sleet, there 
was a clear, whizzy ringing in the air distinct- 
ly heard, yet the tiniest and most musical 
ringing notes the ear can discern, and a mer- 
ry little shattering above and all about that 
makes the nerves freshen with the thought 
that the ringing sleet is a company of head- 
long fledgeling boys coming to a merry-mak- 
ing with the snow-flakes, that are girls. And, 
too, now and then there is a gliding and a rat- 
tling that make us think the merry imps are 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 271 


leaping down off the twigs, or climbing out 
upon them to shake the icicles off to hear them 
crash, and see them skate down the hills. 

When the tempest filled the spaces with rain 
we knew it by the splash. When it broke into 
storms, the winds fly and growl and howl and 
whistle and dance and rush, and the clouds are 
seemingly breaking into one another’s muni- 
tions of rain and ice, carrying each other by 
storm; the forest mourns, the rocks scream, 
the gorges roar, the mountains bellow, a tre- 
mor shakes the ground, limbs crack and fly 
from their places, and forest-kings fall along 
the earth with lumbering sounds like signal- 
giins of distress at sea, and all is commotion 
without and awe within. 

All night long beast signaled beast in the 
elemental melee; and once a brave push was 
made against our i^icket door, answered by a 
flight of bullets through the cracks, and the 
animal leaped wildly away and plunged, we 
knew by the splashing thud, out into the tu- 
multuous river, and we heard it buffeting the 
contrary currents, then fiercely roar far down 
on the other side. 

The next morning a band of Indians strag- 
gled near us, picking their way southward. 
AVe beckoned them to the camp and gave them 


iH’i 'A CA L l FORK I A G OLD- FIELD SCENES. 


much of the venison that Jim had salted down 
for us; and as one gathered a firebrand, and 
moved on, they defiled after him, stolidly bear- 
ing the pieces of flesh to a sheltered dell. 
Soon, by the columns of smoke and bursts of 
whoop and laughter, we knew they were in 
liigh carnival, though the snowy storm beat 
upon them. 

Tliey had barely feasted and skirred across 
the spur next them when a few old men and 
women and little children came on tottering 
step, following in their trail. Maine feasted 
them upon remnants of bread and venison that 
had been accumulating for several days, made 
them a bucket of coffee, loaded them with 
fresh meat, and they tottered out into the tem- 
pest again. He stood a long while watching 
their old bare heads, grizzled by age and white 
with snow, with the tripping children bare of 
clothing, tramping by their side. When he 
turned into the tent, I said: “If those old 
foresters were Southern slaves, such weather 
as this they would be warmly clad, in good 
cabins, round a big fire broiling bacon, 
cooking ash-cakes and potatoes and that 
best of dishes, lye-hominy, laughing, sing- 
ing, happy; and the lads and lasses, gone 
on before, would be doing likewise, spicing 


CALlFOB^lA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 273 


the programme by snugly courting. Which 
had you rather be, a Southern darky or one of 
them?” 

“I ca’c’late,” he replied, “the darky is the 
most comfortable; but I ’d rather be one of 
iliemy free to defy the storm when too thriftless 
to own a shelter to warm in out of it.” 

In the meanwhile the Indian is passing on, 
as he has been for centuries — passing from sea 
to sea, through all climes, through forests and 
mountains and delightful valleys, the child of 
the jungle, in savagery still, fleeing civiliza- 
tion, unblessed by its virtues, cursed by its 
vices — passing on till there is no region beyond 
into which he may pass. 

We have founded temples and schools upon 
the mounds of his storied dead, tamed his 
lakes and rivers and wilds with steam, and 
hustled him out of his valleys and fastnesses 
witli our industries. We need and will have 
his whole domain for good uses, are bound to 
light up its recesses with electricity so not a 
recess can he hide in; and our roving families 
kill the grizzly because he kills their stock and 
their children, and will kill him for the same 
reason. What shall we do with him? Dis- 
crown him for his own good, and for ours as 
well ; make a citizen of him, give him the bal- 
ls 


274 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 

lot, make him subject to the laws to which we 
are subjected; and he will be still long enough 
to be civilized. 

About three o’clock one afternoon we were 
startled, while standing on the blufF in front 
of the camp, by a volley of icicles rattling 
down the mountain and shivering to pieces 
around us. We watched up the height to de- 
tect the animal that had loosened them, but 
all was quiet for a minute or two. Then other 
icicles came rushing down from a projecting 
snow-bank a thousand yards from us, and near- 
ly twice as many feet above us, and Maine 
saying, “Sleet melting this sunny weather,” 
we turned to discuss our claim again. But a 
minute later, an awful, grating, roaring, hiss- 
ing, flitting sound quickly drew our eyes crag- 
ward to see a mountain of snow, limbs, and 
rocks, like a monster wave of white lightning 
and furious thunders, bounding down upon us. 
We fled like arrows beneath our rock to avoid 
the avalanche. It swept athwart our rock- 
roofed room, and buried itself in the chasm 
below with a horrible roar, having torn away 
most of our little plateau. Its white race- 
track was about three hundred feet wide. As 
it rushed over our rock-roof its sound was un- 
utterably grating, quichy fierce, stunning, like 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 275 


the irking roar of a thousand steamers vying 
in letting off steam together. 

We were prone upon the clay floor, faces in 
our palms, when it passed over us, some im- 
pulse we noted not having cast us down so, 
when we entered beneath the rocks. When 
he sat up, the first words Maine uttered were: 
“Sakes alive! Whew!” To which I replied: 
“Sh — , sh — , shucks! ” 

Now and then till sundown snow-scales were 
shaken from the locks of the crags tumbling 
toward the chasm, and, however small when 
first discovered coming down the mountain, 
wound about themselves icicles and soft snow 
till they were large as cabins. Many of them 
butted their brains out against the trees in the 
descent, breaking on to the gorge in many 
fragment, like mad children of the avalanche 
bounding to their mother on her chasmy bed. 
The winds rose after night-fall and beat against 
the mountains, and packed with its millions of 
blows the snow-banks hard again, and chilled 
them there with freezing blasts. 

AVhen the spring thaw came, it was charm- 
ing to dwell in this city of snow. Bursting 
from under its gleamy minarets and streets of 
ice, many water-spouts jetted crystal rills into 
the rivulet, till tower after tower melted down. 


27G CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


palaces fell in, cottages crumbled and, with the 
icy pavements, flowed away, bearing to the 
dwellers in the valleys the refreshing snow- 
floods. The sides of the mountains more and 
more looked like patch-work — here a space of 
white, there of dark, yonder of green, and in- 
termingled stretches of flowers. For flowers 
and green grasses often kissed the snow-circles, 
and green leaves fluttered above it, till in the 
July days the earth-border reached from the 
placer of toil to old Winter’s palace on the 
peak. And soon the sunbeams up there print- 
ing leaves and twiggy shadows on its weep- 
ing face, it melted away in their warm caress- 
es, and, like Aaron’s golden calf, turned to 
dust; it was “strewed upon the water,” and 
the tribes “ drink of it.” 

In August our rich lead was lost beyond 
tracing. We had, however, made a “pile” of 
many ounces of virgin gold; and Maine de- 
parted for the Atlantic States; and as the 
“ tiredness,” of which my first gold-field part- 
ner so often lectured, clung to me still, I con- 
cluded to visit among the valleys to breathe 
awhile their softer airs, and enjoy their milk 
and honey and fruits and restfulness. 

I left the stage at the Mokelumne Fiver to 
strike across the plains to the Calaveras Valley, 


CALIFOBNIA GOLD-FIFLI) ^CEXFS. 277 


about sixteen miles distant. The stroll was a 
joy to me. The dust of the beaten road, the 
clatter of coach and team and passengers were 
an annoyance. They were gone; and walking 
across the brown plains among scattered herds 
and flocks, and humming bees, and leaping rab- 
bits, brought me nearer home than I had been 
for many months, even in scenic associations. 
Night came on before I could get to the ranch 
where an old friend dwelt. The stars shone 
merrily, however, and the moon flooded my 
pathless route as I neared the blue belt of 
timber that marked the course of the little 
winding river that named the valley. 

In crossing a low roll of knolls, I beheld in 
the distance many lights like spectral stars 
grouped near the ground, arched by a leafy 
sea of green at rest in some wide-boughed 
trees. They laughed in my face, whirled^ 
round, moved to and fro, intermingled as if 
whispering together, stood still stretching 
their eyes at me as if wondering why I stopped 
on the brown turf watching them before pass- 
ing down the knoll ; and the foliaged dome and 
its branchy, angulated rafters tossed about in 
a silvery illumination as breezes shook them 
above the solitary aisles of the strange tem- 
ple. It was nothing to me, whatever it was, I 


278 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


thought, and journeyed on among the dips and 
rises of the plain. But presently in a little 
vale, still shut in from the lights, I was arrest- 
ed by song as of many voices, and was spelled 
to the spot. It chimed in the air, paused at 
my feet, rippled through my hair, touched my 
pack till it was light as a feather, echoed on 
my cheeks, whispered in my ears, lodged on my 
breast, got into my heart, and out in tears at 
my eyes; and scaling the knoll I saw that the 
temple of leaves had become a temple of God 
where a thousand worshipers were praising 
him, at a California camp-meeting. Involun- 
tarily thither I went. 

The clear heavens, that autumnal night, 
were dressed in silvery tissue over azure skirts 
clustered with stars; and dark-eyed earth lay 
marveling at their beauty. Zephyr’s step was 
muffled, and every few minutes she sighed up 
to the skies, and, invisible, flitted here and 
there among the worshipers, and whispered to 
the green leaves above them. And the silent 
company’s eyes looked like spirits hearkening 
for heavenly signs, as they intently fastened 
upon the minister. He spoke of the ruin sin 
brings to persons and peoples, its stains indel- 
ible to all except Christ’s blood ; how lovingly 
he would save us, and surely, only if we would 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 279 


come to him. Come all; come now; trust, obey. 
The worst need not hesitate; he died for the 
chief of sinners, died that we might not per- 
ish, but might have life. The “ pearl of great 
price ” — everybody’s, yours; brighter than gold- 
en ore — saving love! it will make you happy 
here, hereafter. 

The hush upon the congregation had been 
awesome, and many seemed to be in the thrall 
of a wand, at whose touch the gold-phantom’s 
charm dissolved, and left them dreaming of 
the “gold tried in the fire,” resolved in all 
their seeking to seek that. As the service 
closed, a person whom I had not noticed, lean- 
ing against the same tree with me, murmured : 
“ Simple, clear, sensible, persuasive. If Leina 
had been here she would have enjoyed it; I 
shall rehearse it to her.” 

I said nothing, got more in the shadow; but 
remembering that he had never seen me ex- 
cept in miner’s costume, and not likely to rec- 
ognize me in my cloth s-uit, I ceased to fear 
his eyes much, but was careful that he should 
not hear my voice. I saw him where, among 
many, he disposed himself to sleep on the 
thick wheat-straw near the stand, and, as the 
lights were extinguished, had no fear of his 
recognition as I spread my blanket in a few 


280 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 


feet of him among the sleepers. I imitated 
the others who had made pillows of their boots 
and coats, lay on one blanket and covered with 
another; and was determined to be known to 
him in the morning. Presently he said, ad- 
dressing no one in particular: “I have some- 
where in the mines, if he ’s not dead, a friend 
called Quien Sabe. Have any of you ever 
met him?” 

“No,” replied several, “not by that name.” 

“Where did he mine, and what his appear- 
ance?” asked one. 

“At such and such places,” he answered; 
“and he was a black-headed, dark-skinned, 
rather weak-looking person — weak in the head, 
I mean. I say * mined;' he never did mine 
much himself. He always had partners that 
did the work, while he played treasurer, ac- 
countant, and the like. He used to be my 
partner. I want to find him, now I have got 
back again from the States.” 

“To go partnership again?” queried one. 

“Well,” he said, “no; but I want to be with 
him awhile. He always needed a guardian bad 
as a boy does. I heard he was killed by an av- 
alanche. It is true, I fear; for if he saie it 
coming, he was so absorbed in admiring its 
noise and bounds he did n’t have the sense to 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 281 


get out of its way. I liave written and in- 
quired in every direction, and I’m now go- 
ing to the northern mines to seek. him; for 
Leina told me to go, or she, or both of us, 
would die of nervousness.” 

“ Yes,” said one, “ you have asked me about 
him four or five times since sundown. You 
may as well be seeking a particular quail in a 
chapparal full of ’em as to seek a man in the 
mines and not know just where he is.” 

“I know it,” said Tom, “ ’specially when he’s 
dead, as Quien certainly is. A miner told me 
out at the store if I ’d go to the d— 1 I should 
find him sooner than to hunt him anywhere 
else; that, no doubt, he was toasting now down 
below, or words to that effect. And I shall 
quit the hunt — he’s dead, no doubt, if not 
worse.” 

I was tired of it by this time, and sat up in 
my shirt-sleeves in a position where his eyes 
would rest upon me, and said, “Pike,” and 
struck a match. He leaped about three feet 
straight up, how I can’t understand, caught 
half-bent on his feet, and with a hand on each 
knee gazed into my face, and exclaimed: “ilfy 
heavens, Quien! is it you? And not dead!'' 

“Nor at the d — 1, either,” I said, “unless you 
and he are the same. Who said I was dead ? ” 


282 CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES, 


“ Wyche,” lie answered. 

“Is Wyche in New York?” 

“No,” he replied, “he’s in Mexico; but he 
stopped at the ranch in Los Angeles several 
weeks ago on his way there.” 

“Tom,” I queried, “you haven’t settled in 
California after breathing out such gloomy ad- 
jectives against it as you did that day in the 
foot-hill mines? ” 

“Yes,” he answered, “I have, and forever, 
in Hhe Yalley of the Angels,’ and I have a 
model farm, and library, and some — ■ goats. 
And you must go eat grapes and oranges with 
Leina and the children. They are dying to 
see you — told me not to come back without 
you, Quien. They have made me tell more 
stories about you than ever Robinson Crusoe 
invented; and I am seeking you more in self- 
defense than for friendship’s sake.” 

And next day we were bounding southward 
on stage and wave. His farming was success- 
ful, for though the laborers listened to Tom’s 
directions, I noticed they did contrary to them. 

Albeit the ranch was a model one. For nat- 
ure here had unrolled a valley like a rare 
variegated carpet, fitted around little hills, 
sprinkled it with flowers and rich grasses; and 
art had grouped a villa of cozy cottages upon 


CALIFORNIA GOLD-FIELD SCENES. 283 


a bright knoll in an orange and lemon grove 
whose green and yellow orbs, some smaller, 
some larger, were like bolls of beryl and gold 
among the green leaves and white blossoms; 
and flanked it here and there with flgs and 
grapes in fruitful bowers and borders. The 
crisp sunshine, the breezes from the hidden 
sea, the voluptuous atmospheric sensations and 
aspects, imparted to every object a charm that 
is surely seen nowhere else. AVithin doors 
love’s trustful peace dwelt. The children, the 
dogs, the cats, and birds were at home. The 
scattered herds and flocks, flecking the land- 
scape, knew Tom’s call, and ran to him on 
sight as assured of his friendship. And Leina, 
unconscious of the guide and guard she was 
to him, was cheerful and reposeful in his pres- 
ence, like a glorious flower softly reveling in 
caressing sunshine, tinting its cheeks, touching 
their graces with freshness and fragrance ev- 
ermore. 


THE END. 



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